Simon Wiesenthal Center

Confronting antisemitism and hate, protecting the safety of Jews and Israel, and teaching the lessons of the Holocaust.

*Reposts are not endorsements

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

For decades, the Iranian regime has sought to influence American public opinion, spread antisemitism, and deepen divisions across the political spectrum.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's Erik Simon joined @FOXLA to discuss our new groundbreaking report, The War for Western Minds, which exposes the Iranian regime's use of disinformation and influence operations to manipulate public discourse and undermine American society from within.

The interview examines how these tactics have evolved over time, the antisemitic narratives being amplified, and why understanding the scope of this campaign is critical to recognizing and confronting its influence today.

Thank you to FOX 11 Los Angeles for spotlighting this important research and bringing greater attention to the threats identified in our report.

Watch the full FOX 11 segment here: https://t.co/KS7uqEmeuI

And download the full report for yourself here: https://t.co/GK6EZ2By73

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

Thank you, @NoaTishby, for amplifying our groundbreaking report and helping raise awareness for the urgent threats from the Iranian regime it exposes. We appreciate your continued commitment to bringing our war on disinformationto light.

Download our full report at the link below.

[Noa Tishby @noatishby]

For 30 years, Iran has used one lie to divide Americans: antisemitism. It sells to the far left, the far right, and everyone in between. Same machine, different packaging.

A new @simonwiesenthal report maps exactly how it works. Read it: https://t.co/NdF7wBxKcJ

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

https://t.co/V3WjDsyCDa

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

Iran’s campaign of influence is not confined to the Middle East. It is reaching into the heart of American society. Our new groundbreaking report, The War on Western Minds, exposes how the Iranian regime has spent three decades spreading antisemitism, manipulating public opinion, and exploiting divisions within the United States. The findings are now getting national attention.

In @JNS_org, Aaron Bandler speaks with our Head of North American Advocacy, Vlad Khaykin, about how Tehran uses “asymmetric warfare,” including propaganda networks, alternative media, and online influencers, to cast Jews as a scapegoat and sow division.

On @knxnews, Emily Valdez reports on Iran’s decades-long effort to divide America from within.

And in the latest episode of CUFI Weekly, Kasim examines how Iran’s influence operations seek to infiltrate public discourse, amplify antisemitic narratives, and undermine American society.

We thank JNS, KNX News, and @CUFI Weekly for helping to bring attention to our findings. The threat demands awareness, vigilance, and action.

Read, listen, and watch at the links in the replies, and download the full report here: https://t.co/lv1pi5hchC

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

https://t.co/Kgu4RrMqZv

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

https://t.co/E7RFeaSroL

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

For more than 30 years, Iran has weaponized antisemitism to spread conspiracy theories, exploit political divisions, and undermine trust in American institutions. 

As detailed in The Jerusalem Post, our new report, The War for Western Minds, examines how Tehran has used state-backed media, extremist networks, and increasingly sophisticated online influence operations to reach audiences across the political spectrum. 

The findings reveal a broader threat: Iran doesn't need Americans to support its regime. It only needs them to distrust their institutions and one another. 

Read the full story: https://t.co/IZocnSE7FX

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

For nearly 50 years, SWC has worked to confront antisemitism, hate and extremism wherever they emerge.

The War for Western Minds examines a threat that demands the same vigilance in a rapidly changing information environment, and offers recommendations for policymakers, technology platforms, journalists and civil society to confront it.

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

For more than 30 years, Iran has built and adapted an influence infrastructure targeting the United States and its allies, exploiting existing divisions and using antisemitism as a tool to deepen them.

Today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center releases its groundbreaking new investigation that exposes this operation, The War for Western Minds: Iran’s Thirty-Year Campaign to Divide America.

https://t.co/whiMzCxduR

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

One of the report’s central findings is that these operations do not need to create America’s divisions. They can identify and exploit the ones that already exist.

Antisemitism is particularly effective because it can be repackaged for very different audiences, allowing similar narratives to travel across political and ideological lines that rarely intersect.
Understanding that process is critical to disrupting it.

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

Statement from Jim Berk, CEO, Simon Wiesenthal Center

“The United Nations rose from the ashes of the Holocaust, built on the promise that human dignity and fundamental rights would never again be denied to any people. For Jews, that promise was not abstract, it was a lifeline, a vow that their suffering would not be repeated or forgotten.

The memory of the 2001 Durban conference lingers like a bruise. What was meant to be a gathering against racism became, for Jews, a stage for old hatreds in new disguise. Jewish participants faced harassment, and antisemitic conspiracies found fertile ground.

The promise of solidarity was overshadowed by hostility toward Israel and Zionism.

Twenty-five years later, that history cannot simply be set aside.

The struggle against racism loses its soul when it turns a blind eye to antisemitism. It is not enough for international bodies to denounce hatred in the abstract; they must have the courage to confront it when it festers in their own halls.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center calls on the UN to reckon honestly with the antisemitic legacy of Durban and to ensure that its anti-racism efforts shield Jewish communities with the same vigilance and resolve shown to all others.

Any institution that claims to fight racism must be willing to face the antisemitism woven into its own story. If it cannot, its promise of universal human rights rings hollow.”

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

“The decision to award the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay is a troubling moment for institutions entrusted with upholding justice. Pillay's long career in international law is not in question, but her leadership of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel and Gaza has raised serious concerns about whether the institutions meant to safeguard fairness are living up to their own standards.

In 2022, a member of Pillay's commission claimed that social media was controlled largely by the ‘Jewish lobby’ and questioned Israel's membership in the United Nations. Rather than unequivocally condemning those remarks, Pillay defended them as having been taken out of context. Hate filtered through the language of legality is still hate, and such rhetoric has no place in institutions charged with defending human rights.

The Nobel Peace Prize should embody a commitment to justice that does not bend to politics or prejudice, one that holds every nation to the same standard. Yet this award risks reinforcing concerns that those standards change when Israel and the Jewish people are involved.

This is bigger than Israel. International law depends on public confidence that its judgments are grounded in evidence, not ideology. When that trust erodes, the institutions meant to protect the most vulnerable lose their credibility, and the pursuit of lasting peace suffers.”

-- Jim Berk, CEO of The Simon Wiesenthal Center

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

STATEMENT FROM JIM BERK, CEO of the SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER

"Mayor Mamdani, what was the real intention of your statement?

It couldn’t have been simply to express sincere condolences and remembrance for October 7, 2023, when over 1,100 people were intentionally murdered and 251 others were taken hostage in the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. If that had been the intention, you would not have used this solemn anniversary to create a false equivalency and advance an entirely different political agenda.

As we have said many times before, if you want to have a conversation about Israel, Gaza, or American foreign policy, then let’s have it. But not on October 7th.

A mayor who represents all New Yorkers should not use a solemn day of mourning to deepen divisions in the city he leads. Do not exploit and weaponize Jewish grief to advance a political agenda on the very day meant to remember those who were murdered and taken hostage.

Show us you are better than this."

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss.

The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them – all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes.

Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.

To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

October 7, 2023, is a day that will forever be seared into Jewish memory.

Hamas and other armed groups murdered approximately 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza. Families were slaughtered in their homes, young people were murdered at the Nova music festival, and entire communities were devastated.

Three years later, we remember every life stolen, every family shattered, and every survivor and community forever changed.

In the face of antisemitism, terrorism, denial, and distortion, SWC will continue to speak the truth and preserve the memory of the victims.

We will remember their names. We will tell their stories. We will continue to defend the State of Israel. We will never forget October 7.

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

On Oct. 6, 1973, as Israelis observed Yom Kippur, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel, beginning the Yom Kippur War.

The conflict would claim thousands of lives and leave families forever changed.

More than five decades later, SWC remembers those who lost their lives and all who endured a war that became a defining moment in Israel’s history.

Preserving this history ensures that future generations understand the events that shaped Israel and continue to reverberate across the region.

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

How do we prevent hate before it turns into violence?

In NYC, SWC joined Council Member Harvey Epstein and Jeff Schoep, former leader of the National Socialist Movement and now an SWC partner, for a community forum at The New School focused on understanding extremism and radicalization.

The conversation gave community members an opportunity to examine how people become drawn into extremist movements, how hate can escalate, and what communities can do to help interrupt that process.

Understanding extremism has long been part of SWC’s work to combat antisemitism and all forms of hate. Through education, research, advocacy, and community engagement, we work not only to confront hate when it appears, but to give people the knowledge and tools to recognize and challenge it.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and contributed to this important discussion.

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

Statement from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Daniel Schuster, Simon Wiesenthal Center European Regional Director

"The British Green Party’s decision to formally classify Zionism as a form of racism is absurd, not based on any logical basis and is itself racist.  And timing, just days before the third anniversary of the October 7 terrorist Hamas attacks, is designed to inflict pain on a deeply solemn occasion.

Three years ago, Israelis were murdered, kidnapped, and terrorized in the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. As Jewish communities prepare to remember those victims and the families and communities forever changed by that day, a major British political party has chosen this moment to declare that the national movement at the heart of modern Jewish self-determination is itself racist.

At its core, Zionism affirms something fundamental: the Jewish people, like other peoples, have the right to self-determination and a homeland.

The consequences of this resolution extend far beyond political theory.

At a time of heightened antisemitism, and on the eve of an anniversary when Jews around the world are remembering the consequences of October 7, political leaders should be building bridges between communities, not creating new tests for which expressions of Jewish identity are considered acceptable.

Branding Zionism itself as racism crosses a profoundly consequential line. It takes a movement for Jewish national self-determination and transforms it into something for which Jews are expected to apologize. We will not.

We support Israel. We support Jewish self-determination. And we will not accept the premise that those convictions are racist. As Jews around the world prepare to remember October 7, hear our message with absolute clarity.”

[Simon Wiesenthal Center @simonwiesenthal]

Protecting the security and future of our local, national, and global Jewish community is central to our mission.

For months, Vlad Khaykin and SWC’s advocacy team have been working in Sacramento, meeting with legislators, helping shape legislation, building coalitions and making sure the concerns of Jewish communities are heard where decisions are made.

Now, six bills we advocated for alongside our coalition partners have been signed into law, strengthening protections for religious observance, houses of worship and community gatherings while advancing recognition of Jewish identity in state law.

This is what sustained advocacy looks like: showing up, building relationships, and turning the concerns we see in our communities into public policy.