Sfide del XXI secolo: l'antisemitismo online

Cari amici,

nei giorni scorsi ho portato davanti al Comitato d'Indagine Conoscitiva sull'Antisemitismo, che presiedo, un argomento ancora poco analizzato, ma di estrema, e sconcertante, attualità: la diffusione dell'antisemitismo su internet, in particolare sui potentissimi nuovi mezzi di comunicazione di massa costituiti dai social networks. Abbiamo ascoltato in audizione due esperti: Stefano Gatti, redattore del portale "Osservatorio Antisemitismo" del CDEC (Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea, che avevamo a sua volta sentito in una precedente audizione), che ci ha presentato una panoramica dei principali siti antisemiti sul fronte web italiano. Andre Oboler, giovane esperto australiano coordinatore del programma Community Internet Engagement della Federazione Sionistica Autraliana, ha affrontato l'aspetto della diffusione dell'antisemitismo online a livello globale e ha sviluppato il concetto di "Antisemitismo 2.0", cioè la sempre più diffusa accettazione nel mondo di internet dell'antisemitismo, o di altri atteggiamenti discriminatori, che la società "reale" in cui viviamo ha imparato a ripudiare. Per fare un esempio: per fare cancellare da un "wall" di facebook una scritta come "sporco ebreo" bisogna ricorrere a lunghe trafile, spesso anche a causa della mancanza di un regolamento ordinato che gestisca i blog o i social network, mentre se la stessa scritta apparisse sotto casa mia, sarebbe più veloce, grazie alla polizia, cancellarla e forse anche trovare i colpevoli. L'audizione, che abbiamo tenuto nell'Aula della Commissione Esteri insieme ai colleghi della Commissione Affari Costituzionali, ha suscitato un interessante dibattito, come del resto le altre audizioni che abbiamo svolto sinora. Stiamo ora lavorando per verificare come poter affrontare alcune delle questioni più spinose, come per esempio il problema dell'hosting di un sito, che, se è registrato all'estero, comporta questioni di extraterritorialità e di cooperazione giudiziaria tra gli stati per chiudere un sito antisemita.
Potete ascoltare l'audizione a questo link: http://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/301764.

Grazie alla collaborazione con il Benè Berith Giovani e con la Consulta della Comunità Ebraica di Roma, abbiamo organizzato anche una serata molto animata per discutere di queste tematiche, insieme ai due ricercatori auditi in Commissione, all'esperto di social media Alex Zarfati e al Presidente della Comunità Ebraica di Roma, Riccardo Pacifici. Insieme a Oboler e Gatti sono stata anche ospite di Unomattina. A questo link potete vedere la puntata (puntata del 23 aprile, nella finestra video il dibattito comincia al minuto 4, dopo la breve rassegna stampa).

* nella foto, l'audizione di giovedì 22 aprile

New battlefields, old tools: the challenge of online Antisemitism

April 26, 2010

For me, the computer has always been a great friend, a wonderful discovery, an incredible instrument to expand my knowledge and a working tool.
And, since I started to investigate online anti-Semitism with the help of Andre Oboler – a young Australian expert who lives all his life on the web - and of Stefano Gatti, editor of the portal “Observatory on contemporary anti-Semitism” of the CDEC, I have understood its tentacular and threatening dimension. Its power is immense: the first ten daily papers in the US – starting from the New York Times – account for 2% of Facebook or Youtube visitors. Its growth is skyrocketing for good or bad, simply because every day there is a geometrical expansion in the number of its global users. And this holds true for extremist and anti-Semitic sites.

A “White Revolution on the Web” is taking place according to David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan racist and anti-Semitic leader, whom once I interviewed at his home in Mississipi, telling him that I was Jewish only at the last moment. Unfortunately he is right. In 1995 there was only one extremist site. In 2009 there were 8500, where it is possible to find the most active negationists, skin heads, neo-Nazis, anti-Semitic Islamics and any other type of anti-Semitism and staunch extremism.

In Italy too this phenomenon is growing. According to Gatti’s research, I have the honour of having been repeatedly depicted and defined as a filthy Jew with all the most hideous racial characterizations, together with many other Jewish people. There are web sites of sick and obsessive individuals, of people who, at last, are able to find a way to express their opinions through social networks and the web. When the internet did not exist, they did not have any chance of voicing their beliefs except for some suburban garages overnight.

The Italian postal police has an invaluable watch to monitor anti-Semitism. They have confirmed that there is a boom in the number of anti-Semitic sites, among which "Holy War", 2Terrasanta Libera" and "Effe di Effe". They spread all the possible old and new anti-Semitic theories of the Jewish conspiracy to conquer the world, of their thirst for blood, for their mean nature and lust for money. All these stereotypes are interconnected, as you can see on a website discovered by Stefano Gatti that, even before the Swedish paper Aftonbladet, stated that Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians to take their organs and sell them like the true Jewish people portrayed by Hitler.

This example points to the new features of anti-Semitism, where there is flimsy line between anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism. The Jewish cruelty stereotypes are all ascribed to Israel, a Nazi state against Palestinians, an apartheid nation seizing Palestinian territories, happy to kill Gaza children. However, why are these stupid stereotypes more dangerous on the computer screen than on paper or on television? The answer could be found in the interactive approach of the public, especially young people, to the contents conveyed from websites and social networks. A young person who reads that Israel is an apartheid State may enter these two words on Google to conduct his/her own search. This will produce disconcerting results for anyone who knows the story of apartheid, for those who understand the Palestinian evil media genius in linking this word that characterised South Africa in the past to the totally and completely different condition in Israel. But those who do not anything about it will find that, by now, the word apartheid is associated more to Israel than to Nelson Mandela’s country. The silly descriptions of the defensive fence as an apartheid wall or of the check points as racial separation means, thus become true. And young people or whoever uses the web, have found these notions through their own search, thus becoming an absolute truth for them. They have read all this on hundreds of websites! Let alone the strength of these sites. The higher the number of hits, the higher their ranking in the search engines.

What can be done? The answers are difficult. But all the people working on the computer would like this tool to be monitored, as said by Oboler, at least as much as the wall near my house. In fact if I find “filthy Jew” written on this wall, I call the police to wipe it out and look for the perpetrators. But, on the internet ground, there are many issues at stake; first, the infinite territorial mobility of websites and of hate networks: in Italy it is possible to shut them down, also under the Mancino Law on racial, ethnic, religious discrimination. But there are endless possibilities to reopen them in another geographical area… once closed, they pop up again in Norway or in Canada and the hate culture wins.

So, it is necessary to act on a global scale, but without violating the right of opinion, that is the strength of the web. Otherwise Google will answer, as it did in the past when requested to be responsible and close an incorrect source of information posted according to the web principles: “it is like accusing the motorway management for car accidents”.

Finally, in a word, anti-Semitism draws the crowds not only on a local scale, but with a global impact that we are not able yet to counteract. It is stronger than ever and closely linked to the desire to destroy the Jewish people through missiles and the future Iranian atomic bomb. In sum, it is imperative to wage a battle to eradicate it, with weapons that must be as pervasive as the ones used by the enemy. In fact, according to the Tel Aviv University, in a recent report by the Stephen Roth Institute, in 2009 the number of anti-Semitic incidents was estimated to match the number occurred on the eve of Nazism and there is evidence that all European countries suffer from this disease two times or three times as much with respect to the past. We cannot fight the XXI century battle with XX century weapons, let’s get to work.

* translation by Silvia Pallottino

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