Hamas ranked as worst 2023 outbreak of antisemitism: Wiesenthal top ten list

The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Tuesday announced the worst antisemitic outrages of the year, led by the Hamas massacre and mass hostage-taking of October 7 in Gaza border communities. The Los Angeles-based Wiesenthal Center accused Iran and Qatar of being enablers and noted that several left-wing organizations embraced Hamas’s lethal antisemitic ideology.

According to Wiesenthal's top ten list, Hamas terrorists “brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis - men, women, and children - including infants. They mass raped women and kidnapped and took over 240 hostages, holding them in underground tunnels, some for over two months. The level of brutality included beheadings and mutilations, making October 7, 2023, the worst atrocity perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust.”

 The Los Angeles-based Wiesenthal Center took a number of left-wing organizations to task for embracing the lethal antisemitic ideology of Hamas.

“Rather than being outraged by Hamas’ crimes against humanity, and despite Hamas’s Islamist goals, groups including, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Workers World Party, and Marxist groups have flocked to the forefront of anti-Israel/ pro-Hamas demonstrations.”

The Center, named for the legendary Austrian Jewish Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, added “From its founding in 1987, antisemitic Hamas – a spawn of the Moslem Brotherhood – was committed to destroying Israel and installing an Islamic state. Hamas receives funding and support from Iran and Qatar.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Qatari regime jointly earned the second spot on the list of worst antisemitic offenses in 2023. “Since Hamas’s October 7 invasion, which Tehran helped arm, finance, and train, the conflict has been expanded through Iran’s proxies.

“Iran’s Lebanon-based terror lackeys, Hezbollah, has launched thousands of rockets and drones into northern Israel and forced the evacuation of some 100,000 Israeli citizens. It has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets aimed at Israel’s heartland. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is no less committed to Israel’s annihilation than his sponsors in Tehran,” noted the Wiesenthal report.

Iran's and Qatar's as state-sponsors of terrorism

The US government has classified Iran’s regime as the worst international state-sponsor of terrorism. The Wiesenthal Center wrote that Iran’s regime “ordered the Jewish community to participate in protests in five cities vilifying Israel.”

Iran’s Jewish community (estimated below 10,000) is required to show loyalty to the aims of the revolutionary Islamist regime in Tehran or face harsh penalties.

According to Wiesenthal, “Qatar openly maintains close ties with Western countries, including the United States. It also supports Hamas materially and politically, allowing Hamas to establish a political office in Doha where Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and associates live in the lap of luxury.”

“Qatar has generally avoided serious criticism from the US as it hosts the 6th Fleet. However, a bipartisan group of 113 US lawmakers sent a letter to US President Joe Biden on October 16 asking him to pressure countries who support Hamas, including Qatar, but there are no indications that the US is prepared to make serious demands of Qatar, a country which also has massive investments in the US,” wrote Wiesenthal.

“Qatar remains a key purveyor of antisemitism and anti-Israel invective throughout the Middle East and beyond via its powerful media outlet Al Jazeera. In addition, Qatar has emerged as the major donor – $4.7 billion – to the “who’s who” of US elite universities dating back to the aftermath of 9/11. The fact that many of these campuses were the sites of pro-Hamas rallies laced with antisemitism in the weeks and months after October 7, cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence,” the Center observes.

Yigal Carmon, the former counter-terrorism adviser to Prime Ministers Shamir and Rabin, told the Jerusalem Post that “Qatar is Hamas and Hamas is Qatar.” Carmon, who is the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), predicted on August 31 that Hamas would invade Israel in either September or October. 

Qatar was cited 12 times in the 11-page Wiesenthal report, including in the center’s critique of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch, ICRC, and the UN

“HRW has aggressively pursued an anti-Israel agenda for years. In the summer of 2023, the group took its animus to a new low by accusing the Jewish state of ‘gunning down Palestinian children,’ conveniently forgetting to mention that most of these ‘children’ were heavily armed teens who were engaged in deadly acts of terrorism,” the report said.

 It added, “With the start of the war in Gaza, the once credible group argued that the US risks complicity in war crimes by providing weapons and diplomatic cover to Israel. HRW Director, Louis Charbonneau, said as much after the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza which would have given Hamas a chance to re-arm, regroup, and plan new attacks against Israel.”

Wiesenthal wrote that “HRW sold its soul long ago…Last month, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a leaked Qatari government document claiming Qatar’s regime paid €3 million to HRW. They know their priorities. Demonize the Jewish state with libels. Depict Israel as an inhuman beast.”

The role of HRW and Qatar’s powerful media entity, Al Jazeera, were criticized for pushing “another lurid accusation against Israel, that the Jewish state was systematically starving Palestinians in Gaza by not allowing aid to reach the people. Al Jazeera rushed to spread the antisemitic and anti-Israel blood libel via its vast global network.”

The UN secures the third slot in its list for multiple outbreaks of Jew-hatred among its top officials. Immediately after October 7, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared that “it is important to also recognize that the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” alleging “56 years of suffocating occupation” suffered by the Palestinians. He then added that Hamas’s massacres “did not warrant the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” Guterres waited 70 days to watch the 43 minutes of video taken by Hamas gunmen of their horrific crimes against Israelis.” 

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, urged Guterres to resign.

Wiesenthal wrote that “The UN’s top Israel-basher is never at a loss for words in her ongoing crusade to demonize Israel…Now the diplomat/terror apologist denies Israel’s right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism. Albanese charged, ‘Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies, from a territory that is under belligerent occupation.’ ‘The killing of soldiers—it’s, I mean, frankly, it’s a tragedy, but it’s not a crime,’ Albanese later said.

The Jordanian, Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, has  gone silent about “Israeli women sexually abused during the Hamas massacre and while held in captivity, dismissing it as ‘disinformation.’”

Wiesenthal slammed UNRWA (United Nations Relief And Work Agency For Palestinian Refugees in the near east) because allegedly its “staff is riddled with Hamas operatives and supporters who appropriated parts of UNRWA facilities to store weapons arsenals and launch missiles targeting Israelis.”

 The International Red Cross was ranked fourth due to "its anti-Israel bias. Israelis looked to the ICRC for leadership in demanding proof of life of the 240 hostages kidnapped and held by Hamas. But the Red Cross only appeared when Israeli hostages were to be exchanged for Hamas terrorists held in Israel.”

According to Wiesenthal, “The so-called neutral international organization was anything but on X, formerly known as Twitter. Of the tweets posted on ICRC accounts, more than 75% criticized Israel, while only 7% took Hamas to task.”

Wiesenthal ranked the President of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad, as number five.

Awad said he was “happy to see” the people of Gaza “breaking the siege” on October 7th when Hamas attacked Israel and murdered 1,200 Israelis.

Awad  termed Gaza as an “outdoor concentration camp.”  White House spokesperson, Andrew Bates, said, “We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.” MEMRI first located and published Awad’s antisemitic diatribe.

 Slot number six went to three elite US schools and their presidents who “equivocated when asked at Congressional hearings if calls to genocide Israel contradicted codes of conduct at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania. All three said it depended ‘on context.’’’

Wiesenthal classified numerous elementary school educators in the Oakland, California Unified School District as the seventh worst outbreak of Jew-hatred because they “held an unauthorized pro-Palestine teach-in in December, shortly after the District’s teachers’ union condemned Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state.”

 Number eight was a number of social media platforms. “ Telegram is foremost among major internet platforms in providing thousands of channels for terrorism tutorials targeting Israeli civilians, promoting antisemitism and nefarious conspiracy theories. Several far-right Telegram channels seek to unite left-wing and right-wing Jew-haters to create a powerful new vehicle to spread antisemitism.”

The center noted,” Antisemitic memes on TikTok, often featuring ugly facial stereotypes once popularized by propaganda ministries in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, are often accompanied by Jewish music.” TikTok is owned by a China-based company and Chinese investor. “China is currently backing Hamas, “ wrote Wiesenthal. 

The global pro-Hamas movement was ranked number 10. Wiesenthal cited many examples, including “In Southern California, 69-year-old Paul Kessler died from injuries sustained in an argument with a pro-Palestinian professor who assaulted him.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post, “There is nothing new about Hamas’ genocidal hate. It is embedded in their founding doctrine and reflected in their unparalleled barbarity. While Nazis tried to hide evidence of their crimes, Hamas live-streamed them. What is shocking is the refusal of world humanitarian leaders to call out Hamas’ evil crimes against humanity.

 Cooper added, "Much of the blame for the shocking silence and apathy lies at the feet of the UN, ICRC, and Human Rights NGOs who bestowed moral equivalence to Hamas’ savagery and then blamed Israel for going to war against a terrorist entity that promised more and more 11/7s.

In the case of CAIR, the self-promoted leading Muslim civil rights organization in the US, its top official celebrated Oct 7th. Especially shocking is the wall-to-wall silence of Women’s and Children’s NGOs when it comes to the brutalities inflicted on Israeli women, infants, toddlers, and children."

 He continued, "Against the backdrop of surging antisemitism in the. US, including and especially on elite US campuses, it’s unforgivable that presidents of US elite universities abandoned their moral compasses and left Jewish students bereft of protection. The SWC 2023 Top 10 is a wakeup call for bipartisan action to halt the hatred that threatens every Jew.”