It turns out that antisemitic blood libels, which seem as if they were taken straight from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," have been updated to sweep up billions of soccer fans worldwide, especially during a time when everyone is glued to the World Cup. From now on, the old fake news claiming that Jews control governments is no longer enough.
The antisemitic campaigns running online since the World Cup kickoff have sought to make Jews hated through new, soccer-related lies. CyberWell, an independent nonprofit dedicated to fighting online antisemitism, has identified dozens of antisemitic campaigns on Meta and X platforms. Written in English, Arabic, and French, these campaigns have spread notorious antisemitic narratives, packaged specifically for soccer fans.
Already during the first week of the World Cup, Arabic posts appeared offering antisemitic content and conspiratorial "explanations" for various events. According to this content, Jews manipulatively exploit sports to distract the public, hide their actions, and mask their ambition to take over the world.
The campaign in question tried to deliver a double message – identifying Jews as responsible for all the world's troubles, and inciting target audiences to seek revenge against them for allegedly "polluting" the purity of sports. In many cases, quotes from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were used, without mentioning the source, of course.
Under the headline "Messi is actually Jewish," and following Argentina's victory over Algeria in the group stage, the general message of "Jews control FIFA" was dressed in new clothes. A new campaign claimed that Lionel Messi is actually Jewish, or controlled by Jews, and linked the Argentine's success on the pitch to "Jewish plots." Another campaign, currently circulating on various platforms, including YouTube, portrays Jews as having "stolen soccer from the Palestinians with the help of FIFA."
The well-known fact that in the 1930s, the team of the Land of Israel, which was made up of Jewish players, played successfully and even competed in the World Cup qualifiers, is presented as "proof of oppression." Just as the Zionists settled on the land and displaced the Arabs – the campaign leaders claim in a stunning reversal of facts – they also pushed the Arabs out of soccer and took it for themselves.
"The World Cup attracts a global audience of billions of people, and this massive exposure is exploited by actors seeking to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories," Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the founder and executive director of CyberWell, said. "The focus on Messi, the use of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', and the claims that Jews control FIFA – all of these rely on the same idea, that Jews are the puppet masters of the world behind the scenes."
She added, "When such narratives are repeatedly amplified on digital platforms, they reinforce this destructive conspiracy theory as part of mainstream discourse, normalizing antisemitism and making centuries-old hatred seem acceptable."
