CyberWell, a nonprofit that monitors and counters online antisemitism, has flagged a social-media conspiracy theory called “Tired Islam,” alleging that a Jewish writer named Jacob Dunne wrote a book detailing a secret blueprint to destabilize Muslim societies.
The book, The Tired Islam, does not exist, including in the U.S. Library of Congress.
Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, founder and CEO of CyberWell, likened the fabrication to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a propaganda pamphlet of fabricated minutes from a Jewish conclave in the 19th century that supposedly spells out Jewish plans to enslave the world.
“It revises century-old religious antisemitism, tailored to go viral on today’s platforms,” she said. “The narrative pushes the same antisemitic tropes that have historically led to mass violence against Jews, now wrapped in a pseudointellectual setting to appear credible and urgent.”
Videos circulating online display invented excerpts from a fictitious chapter titled “The End of the Arabs,” describing Jewish efforts to destroy Muslim society and claiming that the text is stored in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
These invented excerpts include language such as, “We must start attacking the sheiks, the mosques and the Friday sermons so that the public moves away from them, abandons the mosques, moves away from the teachings of the Quran and prefers our culture to its religion,” and “Technology and the internet are the weapons of our time. We must focus on supporting the negative aspects that undermine the personality and behavior of the Muslim.”
“Digital platforms are facing a moment of reckoning,” said Cohen Montemayor, warning that inconsistent enforcement on social-media platforms leaves room for such conspiracies to thrive.
