Becker was consulted by the Tagesspiegel because of his affiliation with the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin, which he led from 2019 until 2025. With the help of a large language computing model, the project aims to create “an [AI] algorithm that will automatically recognize antisemitic statements in web comments . . . so that antisemitic posts can be removed more efficiently and accurately” by online platforms. In a talk to the Institute of the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Becker lays out the political focus of the project:
The dataset is divided into labels of differing forms of supposed antisemitisms such as “analogies with Nazism,” fascism, apartheid, or colonialism; calling Israel a racist or terrorist state; accusing it of genocide; referencing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS); giving Israel the sole blame for the plight of the Palestinians; applying double standards; and denying Israel’s right to exist.
On the topic of Palestine and Israel, the glossary seems to operate within a logic that sees emotional responses to a live-streamed genocide not as a human reaction but as an indicator of antisemitic beliefs. The emotional, irrational, and racialized Palestinian Other is already a common theme in the criminalization of the Palestinian diaspora and Palestinian solidarity in Germany and beyond. This logic regarding the possible motivation behind innocuous or harsh comments reflects a worldview that suspects antisemitism everywhere, especially where it does not exist.
In an interview with Israeli news outlet Mako, Becker suggests that social media providers are opening their doors and hearing concerns like his. This strongly suggests hopes to commercialize and implement its findings with online platforms. Five years after its inception, it appears that its conceptual framework and glossary have been overtaken by reality. We are today seeing, in real time, what Masha Gessen called the liquidation of a ghetto, and the deliberate killing of Palestinian children by the Israeli military, turning Gaza into a “‘Graveyard’ for children.” While this reality may shatter the scientific credibility of Decoding Antisemitism and its conceptual framework, the project may nonetheless be a formidable weapon for those who want to erase Palestinians’ and their supporters’ voices online and take legal proceedings against them offline.
Only a Nazi conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Those on the right, being Nazis, use the Hitlerian definition of anti-Semitism. In this Hitlerian definition, Jews can never actually be full citizens of any other nation besides Israel. Regardless of their personal loyalty or belief, any Jew in the US or Europe is suspect, only a partial citizen, a foreigner at their very core. This is Hitlerian, as it is the very way the historical Nazis viewed Jewish identity.
For modern Nazis, being a Jew and being Israeli are interchangeable. A criticism of the Israeli government is an attack on Jewish people in general. Nazis like the modern Republican Party believe that Jews can never be real Americans, and that they will always have some connection and loyalty to the Israeli state. This is the very logic that justified the Japanese internment camps. If you think every Jewish person must be loyal to Israel, you are literally a Nazi.
Boycott Zionazi Germany
Okay I know Germany’s been struggling as of late, but I had plans to flee the US and go there for a time.
And now I’m thinking that isn’t a great idea. Like, out of the frying pan into the fire?
YIKES! So after empty speech of doing something against the enthnic cleansing now instead of ramping up, they decide to drown dissent.
Germany is starting to literally depart from being any semblance of a democracy at this point.
When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty!
