Israel-Related Conspiracy Theories

Claims about secret Jewish control of the media, government, and the economy provide a recurring framework for conspiracy narratives involving Israel.[1] These narratives can treat Israel as a Jewish collective and assign Jews responsibility for events far beyond the actions of any Israeli government.[1] In Arab political discourse, allegations of Israeli conspiracies have appeared since the state’s establishment in 1948, drawing on earlier portrayals of the Zionist movement as possessing sweeping, concealed power.[2]

The same event can generate incompatible allegations: during the Syrian civil war, supporters of Bashar al-Assad accused Israel of directing his opponents, while opposition narratives depicted Assad as secretly serving Israeli interests.[2] Such accounts could vilify political adversaries and transfer responsibility for failures to an external actor rather than examine internal problems.[2] Their persistence was not confined to disputes over the Palestinian issue.[2]

Other recurring themes include alleged foreknowledge of attacks, financial or political profit from disasters, and manipulation of the United States into Middle Eastern wars.[3] Versions concerning September 11 also allege that Jewish-controlled institutions concealed evidence or that Jews and “Zionists” exploited the attacks to expand surveillance.[3] These themes reproduce older accusations of Jewish power, disloyalty, control, and greed.[3]

The forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in a Russian newspaper in 1903, falsely purported to record secret meetings of Jewish leaders plotting world domination.[4] The supposed meetings never occurred, and the alleged “Elders of Zion” did not exist.[4] The forgery emerged from late-nineteenth-century Russian secret-police circles that borrowed material from French and German antisemitic writing.[5]

Its literary antecedents included Maurice Joly’s 1864 political satire Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, which was not about Jews, and a chapter of Hermann Goedsche’s 1868 novel Biarritz depicting a rabbinical cabal.[1][4] In 1921, reporter Philip Graves exposed matching passages between the Protocols and Joly’s work.[4] Repeated exposure did not end the forgery’s circulation or its use in blaming Jews for societal problems.[4]

The connection to false allegations about Zionism was present in the original publication: Pavel Krushevan’s newspaper invoked the emerging Zionist movement as supposed evidence of a Jewish plot.[4] Later versions claimed that the text recorded the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel in 1897, although it did not.[4] Its invented conference thus became a vehicle for portraying an actual Jewish political movement as a secret world-controlling organization.[4][6]

Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, fears of communist revolution helped spread the false accusation that Jews were responsible for revolutionary plotting, sometimes called “Judeo-Bolshevism.”[4] The Protocols was translated and distributed internationally after the revolution and World War I, and subsequently used in Nazi propaganda.[4][6] Its details were repeatedly altered to fit local circumstances and current events while retaining its central antisemitic ideas.[4] The text continues to circulate in print and online.[6]

The Judeo-Masonic conspiracy myth reached the Middle East through Christian writers from the mid-nineteenth century and through Nazi propaganda from the 1920s, with the Protocols playing a central role.[7] Maronite writer Awad al-Huri’s 1929 book Asl al-Masunniya was an influential local contribution, and later regional versions drew on both that book and the Protocols.[7] The myth gained popularity after 1948, following repression of local Freemasons.[7]

European antisemitic material circulated in Arabic and entered political writing about Israel; a recurring theme was the allegation of a Jewish world conspiracy.[8] Such material was directed against the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine and later against Israel.[8] Antisemitism did not cause the Arab–Israeli conflict, but the conflict stimulated antisemitism and aggravated hostility.[8] The Protocols appeared in Arabic around 1967.[8] A 2005 Damascus edition connected it to a supposed Zionist plot behind September 11.[1] An Egyptian television series based on the forgery aired in 2003.[9]

The false claim that 4,000 Jews or Israelis had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks appeared in a September 17 broadcast on Hizballah’s Al-Manar television.[1] It appears to have distorted a September 12 report that Israel’s Foreign Ministry had received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and Pentagon when the attacks occurred.[1] A later version alleged that Mossad warned Jewish World Trade Center employees not to go to work.[1]

There was no mass absence of any group from the World Trade Center on September 11.[1] An estimated 10–15% of the 2,071 World Trade Center occupants who died were Jewish, an estimate based on funerals at synagogues and temples.[1] Nevertheless, a survey of Pakistanis asked about the supposed absence of 4,000 Jewish survivors found that 71% regarded it as a “possible fact,” 13% called it a rumor, and 16% considered it baseless.[1]

Other versions claimed that Israeli agents carried out the attacks as part of a Jewish plan for world rule, or that Jewish investors sold airline and insurance shares beforehand and profited afterward.[9] Allegations also depicted Jewish officials in the Bush administration as collaborating with Mossad to benefit Israel and obtain access to regional resources.[10] These claims circulated through conspiracy websites, social networks, video platforms, books, and DVDs; by 2011, the initial “4,000 Israelis” story had receded relative to some other versions.[10]

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote that allegations blaming Israel appeared within days, describing both the claim that Mossad carried out the attacks and the explanation that they were a response to American support for Israel.[11] His account documented the appearance of those arguments rather than independently investigating them.[11] In a review of Tobias Jaecker’s study, Manfred Gerstenfeld discussed additional allegations that American intelligence had arrested 200 Israelis before the attacks and that Israel could access almost all American telephone conversations; he characterized publications promoting the arrest allegation as mendacious.[12]

The attacks also became material for state-level political rhetoric.[13] In a 2010 UN General Assembly speech, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that elements of the American government had orchestrated September 11 to improve the U.S. economy and “save the Zionist regime.”[13] He also asserted that, even if Muslims had carried out the attacks, the United States exploited them, and he called for another inquiry.[13] American and other Western delegations walked out, and the U.S. mission condemned his remarks as conspiracy theories and antisemitic slurs.[13]

Later online narratives continued to invoke the “dancing Israelis” story, alleging that Israelis knew about the attacks and recorded them for Israel rather than warning the United States.[14] The number of tracked incidents containing September 11 conspiracy theories increased from 35 in 2022 to 68 in 2025; these counts concerned monitored incidents, not a population-wide measure of belief.[3] The recurring allegations included Israeli orchestration, advance knowledge, political manipulation, financial gain, and institutional concealment.[3]

The Assad regime and its opponents assigned Israel contradictory roles during the Syrian civil war: one portrayed it as the uprising’s instigator, while the other depicted it as the regime’s concealed protector.[2] These allegations developed alongside an Israeli declared position of non-intervention beyond stated security red lines.[2] The political vocabulary drew on an established association between domestic enemies and Zionism, illustrated by a chant Syrian schoolchildren were made to recite: “We swear to battle imperialism, Zionism, and reactionism, and smash their vile tool – the traitorous gang of the Muslim Brotherhood.”[2]

Early in the 2011 uprising, an official Syrian source alleged that more than a million recorded messages had arrived from abroad, “especially Israel,” directing rioters to use mosques as operational bases.[2] In 2015, Assad called terrorists “the real tool of Israel [in Syria],” while presidential adviser Buthayna Shaʿaban portrayed regime opponents as allied with global Zionism.[2] These statements formed part of a narrative assigning foreign direction to the uprising.[2]

Opposing accounts alleged a secret bargain in which Assad strengthened Israeli security in exchange for protection of his rule.[2] They included claims that he had “sold” the Golan Heights and that Israel shaped American policy to keep him in power.[2] Such narratives offered opposition groups an explanation for their failure to achieve political or military objectives, while regime narratives discredited their opponents as foreign agents.[2]

A related allegation circulating from 2014 identified Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a Jewish Mossad agent called Simon or Shimon Elliott.[2] In that story, the Islamic State served a Zionist project to destroy Arab states and establish “Greater Israel.”[2] It spread through websites, social media, Syrian publications, and Arab press, relying on dubious sources and recasting the group’s actions as an Israeli operation.[2] The accusation also allowed its promoters to portray the group as religiously illegitimate.[2]

Conspiracy accusations have assigned Israeli responsibility to events as different as the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombing and the December 2004 tsunami.[1] Australian conspiracy theorist Joe Vialls claimed that an Israeli “mini-nuclear weapon” caused the Bali bombing.[1] A January 2005 article in Egypt’s Al-Usbu alleged that a joint American-Israeli underground nuclear test caused the tsunami.[1] Other accusations blamed Israelis for the 2004 Beslan school attack and “global Zionism” for alleged child abductions following the Southeast Asian tsunami.[9]

A December 2004 Al-Usbu article alleged that the United States and Israel had produced a document called “The True Quran.”[1] The similarly titled The True Furqan was written by evangelical Arab Christians, and its translator said its authors had no connection with Israel or the American government.[1] In his review of conspiracy literature, Gerstenfeld also reported that Syria’s state-controlled al-Tawhra accused Israel in February 2006 of spreading bird flu in the Far East to mislead the world and attack Arabs.[12] He recorded accusations by Iranian leaders Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blaming “Zionists and foreign forces” for the February 22, 2006 bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra.[12]

After the November 2017 al-Rawda mosque massacre in Egypt’s Sinai, some outlets and commentators blamed Israel, sometimes together with Saudi Arabia, the United States, or other actors.[15] An al-Sharq article alleged Mossad and Saudi responsibility; an al-Hayat al-Jadida column claimed that Israel and the United States used the perpetrators to destabilize Egypt.[15] Sinai tribal spokesperson Aref al-Akur alleged an Israeli scheme to expel Sinai residents and create terrorist groups.[15] These allegations were baseless.[15]

Disease and child-harm narratives have included a 1997 allegation by Nabil Ramlawi, the PLO representative to the UN in Geneva, that Israeli authorities infected Palestinian children with HIV.[9] Other accusations alleged the spread of mad cow disease through chocolate and the theft of organs from Arab children.[9] Iran’s Sahar 1 television aired the weekly fictional series Zahra’s Blue Eyes, also called For You Palestine, in December 2004.[9] It depicted Israeli doctors taking hearts from healthy Palestinian children for transplants and children whose eyes had supposedly been stolen by Israel.[9]

In a 2020 advocacy commentary, a Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs author reported Palestinian Authority spokesperson Ibrahim Milhem’s statement that Israel was not exporting coronavirus but was an “agent” of the epidemic, which he linked to occupation.[16] The author also attributed to Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh allegations that Israeli soldiers spread the virus by spitting on Palestinian drivers’ car door handles and that Israeli actions deliberately increased infections.[16] The author argued that these allegations belonged to a campaign to delegitimize Israel.[16]

Conspiracy claims about the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack appeared online on the day of the attack.[17] A QAnon-related Telegram channel portrayed it as a Mossad false flag intended to enable territorial seizures and “Greater Israel.”[17] Other claims alleged Israeli advance knowledge and deliberate inaction, Israeli control of Hamas, or a plot leading toward World War III.[17]

Subsequent versions alleged that Israel killed its own citizens, that Hamas, Mossad, and American intelligence jointly staged the attack, or that the IDF deliberately permitted the invasion to pursue territorial or political objectives.[18] A further version depicted the attack as an Israeli operation intended to enable ethnic cleansing or territorial expansion.[17][18] These stories circulated on Telegram, X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and 4chan, alongside denial and mockery of the attack.[18][19]

The attack was extensively documented, yet some people tearing down posters of Israeli hostages claimed that Israel had kidnapped its own citizens.[18] Narratives previously associated with fringe forums circulated more widely.[18] Related self-attack allegations also appeared after Iran’s missile attack on Israel, when a Telegram user suggested Israel might have sent drones against itself, despite Iran’s public acknowledgment of responsibility.[18]

A preliminary analysis examined 11,200 comments posted beneath major British, French, and German media outlets’ YouTube and Facebook content between October 7 and 12, 2023.[14] Researchers coded comments for antisemitic concepts, finding allegations of Jewish control of public opinion, staged Hamas attacks, and Israeli or Mossad permission for a false flag.[14] Conspiracy theories represented 12.3% of the antisemitic comments in the German material examined.[14] The findings described selected comment threads over five days, not the prevalence of those beliefs in the general population.[14]

Conspiracy-making is one of several recurring denialist tactics, alongside reliance on fake experts, selective evidence, impossible evidentiary demands, and misrepresentation or logical fallacies.[18] Earlier online accusations had also blamed Jews or Israelis for the Boston Marathon bombing and Sandy Hook school shooting, including an allegation that Israeli “death squads” committed the latter.[20] Online communities can give participants a false impression that their shared theory enjoys broad agreement.[20]

A different set of Israel-related conspiracy narratives accused senior Israeli figures, including Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and Yoav Gallant, of being American agents working against Israel or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[21] The accusations extended to other officials, civil-society and left-wing organizations, journalists, and media outlets, frequently in response to American criticism or demands concerning the Gaza war.[21]

The phrase “American agents” appeared in an X post on August 11, 2023, before October 7.[21] A later focus on Gantz and Eisenkot followed their October 10 entry into the war cabinet, and use of the phrase rose sharply in early February after the Biden administration announced sanctions on some violent settlers.[21] One reported measure showed a 1,579% increase in exposure against a preceding comparison period, although the account supplied no further methodological details for that measure.[21]

A survey conducted by Fake Reporter with Hebrew University doctoral student Nimrod Nir found that 26% of Jewish respondents believed Gantz and Eisenkot were foreign agents advancing American interests in the war cabinet, while another 24% were unsure.[21] The published account did not provide sample size, field dates, or sampling method, limiting interpretation of those percentages.[21]

A 2023 cross-sectional study of 1,790 UK-resident adults surveyed in December 2021 found a positive relationship between coronavirus conspiracy suspicions and generalized antisemitism, including after demographic controls.[22] Its analysis suggested that older forms of antisemitism accounted for the association: Israel-related antisemitism and coronavirus conspiracism were linked because both were associated with antisemitism toward Jews identified as Jews.[22] The analysis supported cautious generalization to the UK adult population but included no data from other countries.[22]

A 2026 account of a U.S. study led by Rutgers psychologist Kent Harber described a sequence in which initial antisemitic attitudes predicted stronger belief in conspiracies about Jews and Israel four weeks later, and those beliefs predicted stronger anti-Israel attitudes another four weeks afterward.[23] Harber estimated that conspiracy beliefs accounted for more than 55% of anti-Israel attitudes across the cases examined, while emphasizing that correlation did not establish causation.[23] He also distinguished criticism of Israel or its government from antisemitism.[23]

In a 2026 interview, Jonathan Greenblatt linked distrust and political polarization to attraction toward conspiracy theories and described a direct association between conspiracy belief and acceptance of antisemitic ideas.[24] The interview excerpt did not detail the underlying research methods or findings.[24] Earlier conspiracy narratives had accused Jewish communities, particularly in the United States, of pushing their countries into the first Gulf War for Israel’s benefit, reinforcing an existing world-domination trope.[8]

Modern portrayals of exceptionally wealthy and powerful “Zionists” secretly controlling Western governments reproduce the structure of older world-control narratives.[25] In his review of Jaecker’s work on German left-wing, right-wing, and mainstream media, Gerstenfeld described a recurring conspiratorial pattern: complex events receive simple explanations involving a powerful hidden group whose supposed scheme is uncovered by a small minority.[12] The study discussed narratives surrounding September 11, Jenin, and the Iraq War.[12]

In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted its non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism.[26] Its examples include allegations of a world Jewish conspiracy and collective Jewish control over media, government, the economy, or other institutions, while explicitly excluding criticism of Israel comparable to criticism of another country.[26] Context-dependent examples concerning Israel include accusing Jews or Israel of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust and holding Jews collectively responsible for Israeli state actions.[26]

Deborah Lipstadt’s 2022 address characterized antisemitism as a conspiratorial presumption that Jews use wealth or power to harm others, through which subsequent events are interpreted.[27] The address distinguished criticism of Israeli policy from antisemitism while identifying imbalance, one-sided blame, and double standards as grounds for questioning the basis of particular criticism.[27] Political criticism can carry antisemitic stereotypes without criticism of Israel itself being inherently objectionable.[25]

The boundary between criticism of Israeli government policy and antisemitism is debated, including disagreement about whether particular Israel-focused rhetoric reproduces antisemitic motifs.[28] Natan Sharansky’s proposed “3D test” identifies double standards, delegitimization denying Israel’s right to exist, and demonization portraying the state as a demonic force; it is a proposed framework rather than a universally accepted rule.[29] The distinction remains between policy criticism and treating Israel as a stand-in for Jews collectively or blaming Jews and Israelis for worldwide disasters.[8]