The rise of antisemitism and anti-American sentiment across the West is something we’ve covered extensively at The Free Press in recent years. New incidents emerge almost daily; last night, anti-Israel protesters gathered near Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, waving Hezbollah flags and chanting “Settlers, settlers, go back home, Palestine is ours alone.” Last week, another group of protesters in New York City, reportedly including students from Columbia and the City University of New York, chanted, “We support Hamas here.”

With each development, the same questions arise: How do such primitive, hateful ideas gain traction? And why does one of the most productive and prosperous civilizations in human history seem to be destroying itself from the inside?

These are the questions political strategist Warren Kinsella takes up in his new book, “The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda,” which examines the spread of these corrosive ideologies in the aftermath of October 7. It’s no accident, Kinsella argues in an excerpt adapted from the book, that Hamas-inspired viewpoints have captured a generation. Rather, it reflects a highly coordinated effort by the terrorist group itself, whose operatives rank among the most sophisticated users of social media in the world. —The Editors

There is a thread.

In the past, white supremacists and Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis lost more battles than they won. They would run for political office and usually come last, or close to it. They would try to promote hate in a classroom and get fired. They would stand on street corners shouting about conspiracies and get laughed at, ignored, and sometimes arrested. In public opinion surveys, they, and their views, would register in fractions of puny percentage points.

In the mid-1990s, as the internet became available to everyone, everything changed. It’s surprising to many, but it is the truth: The neo-Nazis and al-Qaeda were on the internet long before Twitter or Facebook. They had websites, in the early days, that were more visually appealing than those of national governments. They had a message, a strategy. Notwithstanding their comparatively small ranks, notwithstanding the limits of their bank accounts, notwithstanding the unpopularity of their message, they could—for the first time—be heard and seen by potentially billions of people.

They had finally been handed a formidable weapon with which to attack their shared enemy: the Jew. And in the years since, they’ve continued to use it. Since October 7, 2023, in particular, Hamas and their allies have done so to remarkable effect, capturing the sympathies of millions.

That is the thread that connects Hamas with all the bigots and antisemites who went before them: They’d discovered a new way to defeat the enemy. They had discovered the power of the online campaign.