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Dotan Rousso: How algorithms reshaped the conversation about Israel

In the age of social media, numbers create power, repetition creates legitimacy and algorithms manufacture reality

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For the last two to three years, the world has been told that support for Israel is collapsing across the West. Social media feeds appear flooded with hostility toward the Jewish state. Millions of social media posts, endless protests, viral videos, celebrities, influencers and political commentators repeating the same rhetoric day after day create the impression that Israel stands isolated while the world unites against it. But much of this perception is deeply misleading. It is not primarily the result of a sudden universal moral awakening. It is the outcome of demographics, digital algorithms, ideological mobilization and the politics of numbers.

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There are roughly two billion Muslims in the world. One out of every four human beings on Earth. While the Muslim world is divided in many areas politically, ethnically and geographically, opposition toward Israel remains one of the strongest unifying themes across large parts of it. For many, opposition to Israel is not merely a political position. It is tied to identity, religion, culture and collective consciousness. Support for the Palestinian cause is often treated not as a policy preference but as a moral obligation deeply rooted within communal life. Even if only a relatively small percentage actively engage online every day, the numerical force generated by........

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