Mark Zuckerberg has a duty to do what he can to protect the Jewish people - opinion

Imagine you are Mark Zuckerberg. You get up in the morning, train in martial arts, grow a beard, get in the car, and drive to the Palo Alto office. Participate in investor, marketing, development, and technology meetings. Eat a healthy lunch. Sit in the office, looking at the graphs of users on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. You glimpse at the hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank account, feeling safe and secure. 

And then you return home, and ask yourself: What did you do today for humanity? What have you done for the people you are a part of – the Jewish people?

Zuckerberg may be Jewish by birth and religion, but the platforms he runs are the world’s largest social media outlets for spreading hatred and antisemitism. 

These are dark days for the Jewish people. Since the Holocaust, Jews around the world have not been under such an extreme hate attack. There has never been a time since 1945 when it was easy to label Jews, slander them, organize against them, demonstrate against them, or hate them. And precisely in this period, Facebook stands on the other side.

Last November, The New York Times revealed that hate speech against Jews had increased by 28% since the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on October 7. We are in an emergency situation. It cannot be passed over in silence. Hatred of Jews has a real meaning. 

No Hamas terrorist could enter Israel and murder every person in front of him unless he was raised to hate Jews so strongly. For him, all Jews, including the elderly, women, and children, have lost any human value. They may be yelled at, tortured, raped, dismembered, burned alive, or killed in any other gruesome manner.

Time for decisive action

This is the time for decisive actions designed to reduce the possibility of spreading hatred. New activists need to be recruited and anti-hatred demonstrations have to be organized. But today, seven months after the October 7 attack, Facebook users are still allowed to write the repulsive phrase “From the river to the sea,” which means that there is no room left for the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people. 

It is no longer politically correct to say “murder Jews” as they did in Germany 80 years ago. Therefore, the platform’s users choose subtler, more sophisticated expressions to convey the same message. 

What does that actually mean – “From the river to the sea”? It means the destruction of the Jewish state. Since October 7, it has become clear that “From the river to the sea” is neither a call for peace nor is it a call for equality, nor a call for a binational state. It is an explicit call to eliminate Jews. This is the ideology of Hamas. This is also the ideology of the PLO. 

Despite many repeated reports, Facebook still allows this ugly phrase to spread. Seven months after Hamas’s attack, Facebook’s board will meet to discuss the phrase. There can be no justification for such inaction while so much hate speech is produced and spread in the meantime. 

Zuckerberg is a private person, but he is also Jewish. He should know very well what it means to spread hatred against the Jewish people. He should know firsthand the meaning of putting a mark on Jews. It never ends with Jews in Israel. It is already spreading in the Western world, first and foremost in Ivy League universities. 

Zuckerberg has a moral, national, and personal duty to do everything he can to prevent the spread of hatred. He is expected to be his brother’s keeper. Is there anyone who thinks he’s doing everything he can to prevent it?

The author is the founder of perception.media, a strategic consultant, and creative director to world leaders.