Personal attacks and death threats: Inside the fight to shape opinion about the Gaza war

Mai Kakish’s nearly 50,000 Instagram followers delight in her family recipes for the fresh yogurt dish labaneh or the pomegranate stew rummaniyeh.

“These recipes are so intertwined with our identity as Palestinians and who we are,” said the Christian Palestinian American who uses social media to maintain ties with her heritage and counter harmful stereotypes. 

But these days, as she shares pro-Palestinian content, her Instagram has become more of a war zone. 

Kakish, 45, has seen an increase in dehumanizing language, similar to what she experienced after 9/11. She has been called a savage and compared to Nazis, and she has been told she should be deported. (Kakish is an American citizen.) 

“Even recipes threaten people. Even the word 'Palestine' threatens people,” she said. 

Once a place for Palestinians and Jews to share positive messages about their identity and culture, social media has become an extension of the fighting in Gaza. 

“My experience online has been a little hard, to be honest,” Kakish said.

Jeopardy! co-host Mayim Bialik: 'My heart breaking open on social media'

That’s something Jews and Palestinians have in common these days.

The past few years have seen a rise in Jewish and Palestinian content creators using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to sow greater understanding and goodwill.

But as tensions soared on social media since the Hamas attacks inside Israel and the Israeli military assault on Gaza, highly charged exchanges and hate-filled screeds began crowding out videos of the Miami Boys Choir or dabke dancing. 

Jews and Palestinians increasingly face threats of doxxing and physical harm to themselves or to their families. The angry outpouring has had a chilling effect on some and a rallying effect on others who are pushing back against the groundswell of antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Social media has long been criticized for driving people further apart. That polarizing effect only intensifies in periods of war and political strife, making efforts to reach across divides even more challenging. 

“Social media works like nothing we've ever seen before to amplify opinions, to amplify attitudes,” said Karen North, a clinical professor of communication at the University of Southern California who is recognized as an expert in social media.

About 4.6 million followers tune into Mayim Bialik on TikTok for the "Big Bang Theory" actress and Jeopardy! co-host’s dance moves and yiddish expressions of the day. But an unscripted nine-minute TikTok video expressing her horror at rising antisemitism and calls for genocide of the Jewish people broke records with 2 million views. 

“The irony has not been lost on me that the thing that has gone the farthest and the widest was literally my heart breaking open on social media,” Bialik said. “There's a deep, deep pain that Jews all over the world are experiencing as the tide of social media seems to be favoring antisemitism.”

The personal attacks and death threats that followed – despite her decadeslong advocacy for Palestinian rights – were disheartening, said Bialik, 47. 

“I don't know when I will have it in me to put on the air of someone who is not feeling like I'm experiencing a nightmare every day,” she said. “I also know that there is nothing worth fighting for that is more important than the legitimacy of the Jewish people and the existence of the state of Israel for me.”

‘Filled with danger’: Jews face hate, threats on social media

Liz Rose, a 36-year-old mom from Atlanta, says she has been on a similar mission since 2017 when she watched torch-carrying white nationalists chant “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Those tiki torches really burned into my brain,” she said. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she created an Instagram account to talk about Jewish culture and counter the wave of antisemitism she was seeing, from braiding challah on shabbat to teaching people what to say to their Jewish friends on high holidays. 

In recent weeks she has had to turn off comments, and her direct messages are filled with threats like “all Jews deserve to die.” But Rose says it has never felt more important to talk about her faith with her nearly 50,000 followers. 

That’s how Marion Haberman says she feels, too. She started a YouTube channel and an Instagram account to share her life as a Jewish mother of three. Swarmed by anti-Jewish comments in recent weeks, Haberman, 37, says she has taken solace in her community and in providing solace to others.

“So much fear is based on the unknown,” said Haberman, who has 100,000 followers on YouTube. “So if you don’t know anyone who is Jewish, and many people in different parts of the country don’t, and if you don’t see anyone online who is Jewish, of course it’s hard to connect with what the Jewish community is experiencing.” 

A queer, Black Jewish woman with more than 100,000 followers on TikTok, Raven Schwam-Curtis has also waded directly into the debate, taking stands on issues they knew would divide their followers. 

Speaking directly to the camera, they have shared social commentary on the crisis in the Middle East, including growing tensions between Black Lives Matter activists and Jews. 

Schwam-Curtis, 25, was afraid to leave their home the first two weeks after Hamas’ attack on Israel. When they did step outside, they would wear a mask and put their hair up to conceal their identity. They have yet to return to wearing their Star of David outside. 

There’s been a “huge uptick in all these nexuses of hatred and antisemitism and anti-Blackness and sexism and homophobia. And that's pretty much what my comments section has been for the last month, and especially those first two weeks,” they said. 

Antonia Lassar, 32, a queer comedian from Los Angeles who launched her Jewish stand-up career on TikTok, shrugs off the antisemitic comments on every video she posts. “My numbers are fantastic ever since the neo-Nazis found out about me,” she joked.

But she doesn't feel as if she can talk about the world’s most divisive conflict in a way that will bring people together. So she is singing instead. Music, Lassar says, reminds her of the human capacity for connection in a grieving world.

“I am having a lot of conversations about Israel and Palestine in my real life,” said Lassar, who has more than 10,000 followers on TikTok. “I am not yet convinced that I can have that same kind of healthy conversation online.”

Analucía Lopezrevoredo, founder and executive director of the Jewish and Latin organization Jewtina y Co., has been avoiding Instagram, a platform that helped her and her nonprofit educate others about the Latin-Jewish community, with videos explaining common Ladino phrases or common misconceptions about Latin Jews.

Today people comb through her old social media posts to post hateful comments.

“Those spaces that have felt safe or fun in the past just feel filled with danger,” said Lopezrevoredo, 38, who has more than 18,000 followers on her personal Instagram account. “There's also a lot of call to action to eliminate us and to eliminate people and, to me, that feels probably the scariest thing I've ever experienced.”

‘I know where you live’: Targeted by wave of anti-Palestinian sentiment  

The growing wave of Islamophobia online and off has been equally terrifying to Arabs and Muslims, from death threats against pro-Palestinian voices to the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in Chicago.

The experience is all too familiar to Lebanese-American chef Amanda Saab, who endured anti-Muslim attacks in 2015 when she appeared on "MasterChef" and became the first woman in a hijab to compete on the cooking show. It happened again later that year when President Donald Trump called for a near-total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.

Saab, who uses her social media to urge a cease-fire, blames anti-Muslim rhetoric and propaganda in Western media for poisoning public debate and turning Americans against the struggle for Palestinian rights and the killing of civilians in Gaza.

“That has a direct implication on how people are acting and treating one another,” said Saab, 34, who has more than 52,000 followers on Instagram. 

Content creators who spoke with USA TODAY voiced concerns about being doxxed online or losing their careers for their pro-Palestinian content. What’s more, they say social media platforms restrict or remove their posts, with more Arabic content taken down than Hebrew content. To get their message out, Palestinian creators say they have had to resort to using code words or “algospeak” to evade social media moderators.

One Middle Eastern travel photographer with a large following on social media said the threats have gotten so bad that she’s planning to move out of the country. USA TODAY granted her anonymity because she fears for her safety and getting targeted or doxxed online.

While she has made pro-Palestinian posts in the past, she said, she’s getting many more hate messages this time around: “‘I hope the terrorists hang you and rape you.’ Threatening my life, like (saying) ‘I know where you live.' And emails threatening me to stop posting what I was posting,” she said. 

Despite the risks, Jenan Matari, 32, a writer with more than 150,000 followers on Instagram, said she persists in sharing her views on the conflict that aren’t portrayed in mainstream media to change hearts and minds.

“We are able to have our voices be heard through our content. And without it, I don't know that we would have this much support right now,” she said. “I think this is the first time that we have really taken over the social media narrative and people are actually listening.”

Social media shines light on Palestinian stories in Israel-Hamas war

Maysoon Zayid, a Palestinian American comedian and disability advocate with more than 35,000 followers on Instagram, says social media is like the Force in Star Wars: It has a dark side and a light side.

Zayid, who is in her 40s, shares stories she believes are being unrepresented in the media. Her Instagram account shows photos of her wearing thobes – traditional Palestinian dresses – and posting images with captions like #ceasefirenow or videos criticizing President Joe Biden’s response to the conflict.

“The light,” she said, “is being able to communicate with everyone and see everyone and have their stories told.”

In her Instagram bio, Sherin Ashkar-Nayfeh, whose parents were born and raised in the West Bank, describes herself as an Arab American. Though she’s proud of her Palestinian heritage and focuses on showcasing her culture and Palestinian identity by posting family recipes online, she knows it can also be a “loaded word.”

“I had to debate whether or not I wanted to put it out there that I'm Palestinian American, for the sake of just being safe,” said Ashkar-Nayfeh, who has more than 16,000 Instagram followers. 

Growing up as one of the few Muslims and Arabs in a small community in Kansas, social media became her bridge to connect with others from similar backgrounds and to share the richness of Palestinian customs and traditions.

Her hope is that people scrolling the platform might come across her recipes and read more about the Palestinian people. 

“We have a culture and we have food,” she said. “And so it's important to me to make sure that the traditions live. To pay tribute to my heritage, and then also make sure that it lives on and people learn about it.”