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Israel's war on Gaza

War on Gaza: The far-right activists advocating for Palestinians

Pro-Palestinian activists have been 'alarmed' by the white supremacists and antisemites joining the advocacy against Israel's war on Gaza
The account of Anastasia Maria Loupis, a Covid-19 denier and far-right supporter of Gaza (MEE/Alex MacDonald)
By Alex MacDonald
Published date: 28 June 2024 17:42 BST | Last update: 1 day 23 hours ago

In the West, most far-right political parties have generally thrown their weight behind Israel in recent years.

At a conference in Spain in early May, hosted by the far-right Vox party, representatives of several ultra-nationalist political movements gathered to hear Israel's minister of diaspora affairs, Amichai Chikli, describe the fighting in Gaza as "an existential battle for the future of western civilisation against radical Islam".

Far-right support for Israel is nothing new, feeding off nationalist fearmongering about non-white immigration and Muslims while seeing the Israeli state as the vanguard of their own struggle.

However, since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza, a small but seemingly influential group of nationalist activists has emerged, amassing large online followings by posting content condemning Israel's bombardment of Gaza and depicting the carnage in the enclave.

Before 7 October 2023, these accounts shared a mix of white nationalism, Covid-19 conspiracy theories and support for Donald Trump, far-right influencer Nick Fuentes and self-proclaimed "misogynist" and former kickboxer Andrew Tate.

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Since then, however, their content has increasingly focused on Gaza, and their accounts have been boosted by other, more casual users concerned about the war but seemingly unaware of their political backgrounds.

The influence of these right-wing activists appears to have grown significant enough that in December, Israeli soldiers scrawled several of their names on a missile set to be fired into Gaza.

Although much of their content is reshared enthusiastically, questions have been raised about their motivations, with leading figure Jackson Hinkle having previously admitted that he posts "for the clout".

“I do everything for the clout. You will never see me do something not for the clout," he once remarked on a Twitch stream.

This has led pro-Palestinian activists to warn about the dangers of the far-right "exploiting" the suffering in Gaza for their own ends.

Mahmoud Nawajaa, the general coordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to pressure Israel over its actions in the occupied territories, told Middle East Eye that anyone profiting from the conflict was a "genocide enabler".

"These far-right agitators have in the past spread explicitly antisemitic, homophobic and white supremacist content, but since October have pivoted to almost exclusively posting content about Gaza," he said.

"They are not allies. Racism of all kinds has no place in our struggle for liberation."

Who are they?

Perhaps the most prominent of the group is Jackson Hinkle, who has referred to himself as a "Maga communist" and claims to advocate a combination of Marxist-Leninism and Trumpism.

His posts mainly focused on praising Russia and Vladimir Putin in the week before the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

“As an American patriot, I hope Russia liberates every last square inch of Ukrainian territory,” reads one post, which he says is a quote from an interview with a Russian TV channel.

His other posts have involved opposition to LGBTQ rights, praise for Fuentes and Tate, who he claims was arrested on "bogus" charges in Romania, and attacks on Hungarian philanthropist George Soros, who he at one point branded as "satanic".

While disputing the label "far-right", Hinkle rails against "woke degeneracy" and "woke Nazism", claiming that capitalism today aims to mandate "universal homosexuality on the rest of the world".

After 7 October, Hinkle began posting enormous amounts of pro-Palestine content. At one point, he told readers: "Subscribe to my X Premium for $3 to support my work EXPOSING ZIONIST LIES."

Much of what he posts involves graphic images of dead and wounded Palestinian children in the aftermath of Israeli strikes.

For his efforts since 7 October, he has amassed more than 2.6 million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter), up from 417,000 before the war.

After Hinkle, perhaps the next most prominent right-wing pro-Palestinian account on X is that of Anastasia Maria Loupis.

Loupis, a doctor based in Denmark, initially came to prominence as a staunch opponent of Covid-19 vaccination and an advocate of conspiracy theories about the virus.

At times, she has managed to combine the two issues, blaming Israeli supporters for "forcing" the Covid-19 vaccine on the populace.

Since switching her focus mainly to Gaza in October, Loupis has seen her follower count almost double to over 1.2 million.

One post, which claimed that Jewish people dominated US President Joe Biden's government, even earned her a rebuke from Hinkle, who pointed out that many of the people she had referred to were either not in the government or not Jewish.

In a post from 20 May, it was announced she would be a VIP guest at the America First Political Action Conference, an event founded by Fuentes and described as a "white nationalist alternative" to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Also prominent on X is Jake Shields, a champion mixed martial artist who has accrued 686,000 followers by publishing content focusing on Gaza.

Much like Hinkle and Loupis, his content includes graphic imagery of the aftermath of Israeli attacks in Gaza.

In other posts, he rails against what he sees as persecution of white men. One theme he frequently touches on is the belief that many Jewish people are particularly anti-white.

"Why are so many Jews comfortable openly hating white people?" reads one post.

"I'm aware most Jews aren't like this, but I'm also aware most anti-white hate comes from Jews."

In another post on X, he claims that "almost every book bashing white people is written by Jews".

"Barns and Nobles [sic] has dozens of books by Jews bashing whites but zero by whites bashing Jews," he wrote.

Besides sharing a loose ideology and their mutual support for one another, Hinkle, Loupis, Shields, and other far-right Gaza supporters are also linked by the monetisation of their accounts. All offer optional X Premium monthly subscriptions for extra content.

Some, like Loupis, also post links on their profiles to Buy Me a Coffee, a crowdfunding website that allows influencers to collect donations from their supporters.

According to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate published in April, which focuses on the growth of far-right Gaza activists, Hinkle claimed to have made $550 in one month from X’s new revenue-sharing feature. This feature allows accounts to take a share of the ad revenue generated by ads displayed near their posts.

Gaza chasers

Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes, both of whom have shared pro-Palestinian content since October, figure prominently within right-wing, pro-Gaza circles.

The account Censored Men, which has over a million followers on X and now primarily posts Gaza content, focused heavily on the Tate brothers before 7 October, claiming they were being unfairly persecuted in Romania.

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan are currently on trial in Romania on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal group to sexually exploit women. The pair deny the charges.

Another figure in the orbit of Fuentes and Tate is the UK-based Sulaiman Ahmed, who describes himself as "the most viral pro-Palestinian account and the most engaged political account on Twitter".

With 555,000 followers, much like Hinkle, Shields and Censored Men, Ahmed posts a constant stream of content depicting atrocities in Gaza and video clips exposing the apparent hypocrisy of western politicians.

In addition to his feed, which offers an optional paid subscription, he hosts a show on YouTube and Rumble called Sulaiman UnSilenced. In it, he interviews guests ranging from Norwegian physician Mads Gilbert and lawyer Stanley Cohen to far-right activists like Fuentes and Lucas Gage.

Like the other accounts, only some of Ahmed's content focused on Israel-Palestine prior to October. More than anything else, he seemed to focus on Andrew Tate.

"The Tates have had their freedom revoked and their reputation slandered in the mainstream media," he writes in one post.

Tate himself, who has 9.3 million followers, has intermittently posted about Gaza in between self-aggrandising content, sports, conspiracy theories and posts defending himself and Donald Trump.

However, before 7 October, there appears to be no mention of "Palestinian," "Gaza," or "Israel" in his feed.

A researcher from the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL) told MEE that the reach of far-right accounts had at times outstripped that of "mainstream" outlets, "especially at the start of the war when users were eager for information coming from Israel and Gaza".

The researcher, who the DFRL said needed to remain anonymous due to the "sensitive nature" of their work, noted that while X's refusal to release bulk data made it difficult to determine the exact nature of their promotion on the site, they had observed the engagement of "possible inauthentic networks and suspicious accounts" with the far-right influencers.

They said Musk's stewardship of X had allowed a proliferation of such accounts where they would previously have been suspended, as they have been on other platforms, and provided extra financial incentives.

"Clearly, if X allows accounts that constantly spread disinformation and continue to do so to be part of its Ads Revenue Sharing and Creator Subscriptions programmes, it is creating incentives for these accounts to continue their harmful activities. Why would they stop if their misleading posts bring them financial rewards as well?" the DFRL researcher said.

"This issue is not only limited to X, as any platform with shared ads revenue needs to deal with this. But the unclear way X deals with such accounts and the amount of reach such accounts are receiving makes it a big problem that contributes to the creation of disinformation on the platform."

In response to a request for comment, Hinkle told MEE that he was a "communist" and said he was "shocked and appalled that Middle East Eye is trying to ignite a culture war when they should be focused on documenting the genocide in Gaza".

Censored Men also told MEE that he rejected the label "far-right" and preferred forming his "opinions by looking at topics individually rather than identifying with a certain political movement and following the crowd".

He also pointed to posts about Israel-Palestine prior to 7 October as evidence he had previously been involved in the issue, adding: "I, in fact, make significantly less ad revenue now than I did pre-October 7 since advertisers don't want to place ads on my tweets and page because I'm an ardent supporter of Palestine".

MEE also reached out to Loupis and Shields for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Palestine activists 'alarmed'

With more than 36,000 people dead as a result of Israel's war on Gaza, the desire to see and spread content showing the evidence of the mounting humanitarian disaster has only increased.

Social media has exploded with images and videos of the besieged enclave. For some, the priority is ensuring this evidence is circulated as widely as possible.

However, for pro-Palestinian activists, who regularly have to fend off accusations of antisemitism from pro-Israel quarters, the presence of the far-right, at least digitally, is a major concern.

Liv Kunins-Berkowitz, the media coordinator for Jewish Voice for Peace, said she was "alarmed" at the growth of the accounts.

"While it is essential that everyone speak up and use their platforms to oppose the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza, we are alarmed by those who are exploiting this moment to promote their own platforms, especially when they have a history of promoting white supremacy, antisemitism, and homophobia," she told MEE.

"As we focus on ending the genocide, it is important to promote leaders and content that upholds the dignity of all human beings."

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