\n<\/p>\n
Hu Xijin, an influential commentator and a former editor in chief of Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper, responded to hawkish statements from an Israeli minister directed at Hezbollah, the powerful militia in Lebanon, writing on Chinese social media: \u201cOh, calm down, Israel. I\u2019m worried you\u2019ll wipe the Earth out of the solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n
At times, the anti-Israel comments took on a nationalist tone. In a widely viewed post, an influencer with 2.9 million followers on the Chinese social media platform Weibo said that he would opt to call Hamas a \u201cresistance organization\u201d instead of a \u201cterrorist organization,\u201d in keeping with China\u2019s own labeling of the group. He went on to accuse Israel of being a terror organization because its airstrikes on Gaza had caused civilian casualties.<\/p>\n
A Chinese state broadcaster recently hosted a discussion page on Weibo stating that Jews controlled a disproportionate amount of U.S. wealth. Many of the responses were replete with antisemitic stereotypes and comments downplaying the horrors of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
Shen Yi, a prominent professor of international relations at Fudan University, likened Israel\u2019s attacks to acts of aggression perpetrated by Nazis. Among the comments on recent posts from the official social media account of Israel\u2019s embassy in China were similar comparisons of Israelis to Nazis.<\/p>\n
It is hard to say whether the anti-Israeli positions in state media and antisemitism on the Chinese internet are part of a coordinated campaign. But China\u2019s state media rarely veers from the official position of the country\u2019s Communist Party, and its hair-trigger internet censors are keenly attuned to the wishes of its leaders, quick to remove any content that sways public sentiment in an unwanted direction, especially on matters of such geopolitical importance.<\/p>\n