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The following analysis was authored by the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM:
On February 10th, U.S. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) announced she would lead a task force to declassify files related to the assassinations of President John. F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the death of Jeffrey Epstein. Congresswoman Luna’s task force is acting on an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on his third day of office ordering the release of all remaining classified documents pertaining to these historical events.
Almost immediately, the congresswoman’s announcement became a focal point for antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Convinced that Jews, Zionists, or the Mossad assassinated President Kennedy, prominent antisemitic influencers such as Jake Shields, Lucas Gage, and Stew Peters framed her involvement as part of a broader Jewish conspiracy to conceal the truth.
The Formula of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories
These individuals now see Luna’s task force as another example of Jewish control over historical narratives. The reaction to Congresswoman Luna’s announcements highlights a well-worn formula for contemporary online antisemitic discourse:
- Blame Jews for for historically significant tragedies — In this case, the assassination of President Kennedy.
- Accuse them of wielding power and influence to cover up major crimes — By claiming Luna is part of a Jewish-led effort to suppress critical information.
- Use these accusations to promote broader antisemitic sentiment — Reinforcing age-old prejudices about Jewish control and manipulation.
This pattern is not new. Similar antisemitic conspiracy theories have recycled this formula in various forms for centuries, manifesting around mainstream current events. As recently as last month, absurd claims proliferated about Jewish and Israeli responsibility for the tragic Los Angeles wildfires. Going back further, Henry Ford’s The International Jew (published in four volumes from 1920 to 1922), and the forged antisemitic document that inspired Ford, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (published in 1903), disseminated this formula to the masses by the millions across the world. Understanding how these narratives persist allows us to better counter their spread.
Why Kennedy? The Fixation on a National Icon
Antisemites focus on President Kennedy’s assassination for a simple reason: he is widely revered in American history. A 2023 Gallup poll found that Kennedy holds the highest retrospective approval rating of any post-World War II president at 90%, with bipartisan admiration. Given this near-universal acclaim, conspiracy theorists find it easy to cast him as a martyr and fabricate a villainous force behind his death — nefarious, scheming Jews.
Further, conspiracy theories about Kennedy’s assassination have been prevalent for decades, and the American public is largely receptive to them, offering fertile ground for antisemitic manipulation. By inserting Jews or the Mossad into existing speculations, these influencers exploit public distrust in official narratives, leveraging it to spread antisemitic ideology.
Prominent social media users are uniquely situated to propagate these antisemitic conspiracy theories. Yale researchers have explained how algorithms incentivize a small number of prolific posters to share misinformation, accruing likes, followers, and influence in the process. Antisemitic influencers such as Stew Peters, Lucas Gage, and Jake Shields cultivated a large following (over 300,000 followers per X account) and weaponized X’s algorithm to propagate conspiracy theories about Jews and the Kennedy assassination.
Recent Examples of Far-Right Influencers Accusing Jews or Mossad/Israel of Assassinating President Kennedy:
The Targeting of Congresswoman Luna
Beyond the assassination itself, antisemitic figures have targeted Congresswoman Luna by:
- Suggesting she is under Jewish or Zionist control, particularly through her connections with Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- Implying she is secretly Jewish, based on statements about her father’s religious background and her self-identification as a Zionist.
Influencers such as Jake Shields fixate on the alleged — mostly imagined — relationship between the State of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Congresswoman Luna. For example, in a recent post on X, Shields shared a photo of Congresswoman Luna and Prime Minister Netanyahu during the latter’s July 2024 address to Congress, and wrote, “This is who is in charge of releasing the JFK files.”
Implicit is the claim that Congresswoman Luna cannot be trusted to lead efforts to declassify files related to the assassination of President Kennedy either because of subservience or fealty to Prime Minister Netanyahu — someone who, presumably, has a direct stake in maintaining the “secrets” of Jewish involvement in the assassination.
In addition, Shields implies that a Jew (or Zionist) always acts in the best interest of their fellow Jews or Zionists, or of Israel, at the expense of others. Invoking “dual loyalty” portrays the accused as untrustworthy, and in the case of Congresswoman Luna, the purpose of the dual loyalty canard is to preemptively reject any findings she may release that do not assign blame to Jews or Israel for the assassination of President Kennedy.
Both the far-left and the far-right peddle the antisemitic conspiracy theory that the U.S. government is a “Zionist-occupied government,” or “ZOG,” and have invoked ZOG when criticizing Congresswoman Luna and her Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.
Far-right antisemitic influencer Stew Peters asked rhetorically, “why should we trust a Jewish stripper [Congresswoman Luna] to tell us about the crimes of our occupied government.” Meanwhile, the seemingly far-left X account “AIPAC Tracker” posted, “6/7 of the members of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets are in the pocket of the Israel lobby.” Unified by their shared antisemitism in the form of alleging outsize “Zionist” control of the United States, the two ends of the political spectrum seemingly mirror each other, reflecting a phenomenon known as the “horseshoe theory.”
Not only is Congresswoman Luna allegedly controlled by Zionists, but she is compromised because she is, supposedly, secretly Jewish. Or, as some antisemites believe, because Congresswoman Luna has claimed that her father was a messianic Jew, or that she is a “Zionist,” she is a co-conspirator working to conceal Jewish responsibility for President Kennedy’s assassination. These tactics serve to undermine her credibility and reinforce the longstanding antisemitic trope that Jews, or those aligned with them, manipulate governments to serve their interests.
Instances of Antisemitism Online Targeting Congresswoman Luna:
Labeling Congresswoman Luna as either a Jew or a Zionist serves the same end: to portray her as compromised and controlled by Jewish or Zionist puppet-masters. Accusing Jews, those perceived to be Jewish, or “Zionists” of infiltrating positions of power for their own benefit is a long-standing antisemitic trope that has nonetheless regenerated momentum in the modern era.
Antisemitic conspiracy theories have long relied on the idea of Jewish subterfuge. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated document from the early 20th century, falsely alleged a Jewish plot for global domination. The Protocols entered American discourse in the 1920s when the leading automobile mogul and industrialist Henry Ford used his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent (which reached a peak circulation of 900,000 in 1926), to amplify this narrative with The International Jew pamphlets, where he blamed Jews for societal ills ranging from economic instability to cultural degradation.
Ford added new, distinctly American charges: the Jews were pushing jazz, were responsible for the “Black Sox” scandal, influenced Benedict Arnold’s betrayal during the American Revolution, controlled the liquor trade, and were behind the Federal Reserve. X influencer Stew Peters, as he seen in this recent post (with more than 161k views), alleges Jews assassinated President Kennedy to prevent him from ending the Federal Reserve. No matter the societal ill, antisemites point to Jews as the perpetrators behind each one of them.
Social Media and the Amplification of Hate
What makes contemporary antisemitism particularly insidious is the role of social media. Influencers with substantial followings can disseminate falsehoods at the speed of click, unlike Ford. For example:
- Jake Shields: A former MMA fighter turned far-right influencer, Shields has over 706,000 followers on X.
- Lucas Gage: Known for overt antisemitic content, Gage has over 304,000 followers on X.
- Stew Peters: A streaming host who frequently promotes antisemitic narratives, Peters has over 433,000 followers on X.
In mere hours, such influencers can generate millions of impressions, spreading dangerous antisemitic falsehoods at an unprecedented scale. The viral nature of social media enables antisemitic narratives to reach audiences who may not have otherwise engaged with such rhetoric. Research conducted by the Cyabra social media analytics firm (full report available here) in collaboration with the ARC highlights the extent to which these antisemitic narratives permeate social media.
Examining both X and Facebook, the report found that during the two-week period of February 11-25, 2025, a total of 425 profiles promoted the slanderous accusation that Congresswoman Luna was a “Zionist puppet.” These profiles generated 543 posts and comments disseminating this claim, and generated 113,000 interactions that had a potential reach of 139 million views. In that same time frame, 522 profiles amplified the claim that Congresswoman Luna was a “secret Jew,” creating 784 posts and comments parroting this misinformation, generating an estimated 84,000 engagements, and receiving up to 142 million views.
Combined, these two false and scurrilous accusations against Congresswoman Luna were seen online by up to 281 million accounts, highlighting the full extent of the problem of antisemitism on social media.
Furthermore, the Cyabra report underscores the threat posed by antisemitic actors who utilize bots to propagate their hateful messaging. Four key posts by Congresswoman Luna’s official X account – a February 11 announcement of the task force, a February 14 video outlining the task force’s mission and objective, a February 19 post emphasizing that “The TRUTH will be revealed,” and a February 25 post urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to expedite the declassification of JFK and Epstein files – were targeted by coordinated and sustained bot-aided efforts to amplify antisemitic conspiracy theories. In all four instances, between 17-19% of all comments came from fake accounts, helping to amplify the antisemitic notions that Israel or Jews were responsible for a cover-up, with repetitive posting patterns where fake accounts drew the attention of real social media users to these baseless and libelous accusations.
In a matter of just two weeks, a pair of unfounded antisemitic claims spread like wildfire, hijacking social media algorithms to reach hundreds of millions of accounts and dangerously perpetuate an ancient hatred wrapped in modern packaging. This is particularly concerning given that younger social media users generally lack the understanding of the historical context needed to recognize these narratives as refurbished versions of centuries-old antisemitic propaganda. Without intervention, these conspiracies gain traction, reinforcing harmful stereotypes and misinformation.
Countering Antisemitic Narratives
Antisemitic conspiracy theories follow a well-defined and historically-rooted formula. Today, antisemites have made an a priori determination that Jews (or Zionists) killed President Kennedy, and the de-classification effort is proof of the conspiracy. Previously, classification of thousands of U.S. government documents at the behest of Jewish puppet-masters, about the assassination was the evidence antisemites used to spread their baseless theories. Amid the possibility of further declassifications, antisemites were forced to preemptively concoct excuses for why the newest deluge of information might prove these decades-old conspiracies wrong.
Antisemitism on social media platforms fuels offline antisemitic acts targeting Jews, and vice versa, underscoring the necessity of addressing both manifestations of hate with equal vigor. NYU researchers concluded in 2019 that online hate begets offline hate crimes, while University of Vienna researchers in 2023 found that offline events fueled online hateful discourse. The October 7th massacre and its aftermath led to a surge in online and offline antisemitic incidents. The Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM documented 4,907 incidents of hate speech in 2024, marking a 202.3% surge compared with the 1,623 hate speech incidents recorded in 2023.
Online conspiracy theories can also inspire acts of violence against Jews. The 2018 Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter, for instance, acted on his online white supremacist rants and committed the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.
To combat the spread of antisemitic conspiracy theories, it is essential to:
- Expose their predictability — Highlighting the repetitive nature of these claims can help individuals recognize them as baseless fabrications.
- Encourage critical thinking — Promoting media literacy and historical awareness can prevent the uninformed from falling for misinformation.
- Hold social media platforms accountable — Companies must take responsibility for curbing the spread of extremist content that promotes hate and violence.
Today’s antisemites rely on a time-tested formula to advance their hateful agenda. What is innovative about their method is the use of social media, which allows them to hijack algorithms and a formerly unreachable audience. In a matter of days, a handful of antisemitic social media accounts can create a false narrative that receives millions of views.
Only by exposing the predictability of their conspiracy theories and their illogical nature can social media users, especially younger users, be inoculated from the societal disease that is antisemitism.
