Robert Kraft says the rising number of antisemitic incidents across the country is “disheartening,” and it’s renewing his belief that education is the most important tool in getting people to stand up to hate.

“If we don’t do a good job controlling it, I think hate leads to violence,” Kraft said in an interview with CNN on Christmas. “And what we’re seeing going on in this country now is really scary to me. And it’s something we want to work very hard to try to prevent.”

Preventing antisemitism is the purpose behind Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which the Patriots owner launched in 2019 to carry out efforts to stomp down on Jewish hate and other forms of hatred in the U.S.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israel in early October, the number of antisemitic incidents in the country has skyrocketed to a record high, according to a report the Anti-Defamation League released earlier this month.

The ADL found that reported incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism had increased by a staggering 337% between the Oct. 7 attack and Dec. 7 compared to the same period last year.

Kraft earlier this month matched a $100 million commitment to his foundation from the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation.

The $200 million funding total will increase the foundation’s reach to “younger and older audiences across America with a larger digital and social reach, new campaigns across television and multimedia, increased data and research abilities, targeted partnerships and meaningful convenings,” according to a release.

Kraft, during his interview with CNN, said he believes “there’s a lot of misinformation that young people are taking in” from social media bots that’s leading to support of Hamas. His foundation is looking to “push against that,” he said.

“These are terrorists,” Kraft said of Hamas. “These are people who cut off babies’ heads in front of mothers and do things — just think about if Mexico came here and went to one of our music festivals and killed people and raped women and paraded them on the street, beheaded the little babies, how would we accept that? And these people are out on the streets marching in support of that?”

In March, Kraft launched a $25 million national campaign to fight anti-Semitism called StandUpToJewishHate, using the blue square emoji on social media as a unifying symbol of support.

The effort reached 120 million people with nearly 6 billion impressions, leading to a 104% increase in people strongly agreeing Jewish hate is a pressing issue and a 91% increase in people who are likely to stand up on behalf of someone experiencing Jewish hate, according to officials.

Kraft highlighted how in the last five months, more than 11,000 people donated gifts of $10, $50 and $100 to the foundation.

“Just small people,” Kraft said of the donors. “We don’t solicit. And most of them are not Jewish. We can tell by the names. And it really made me feel good and just motivates us more because it shows Americans just instinctively want to do the right thing.”

“And we have to continue to support them,” he continued. “I don’t think most people in this country understand the way this hate has grown. And we will continue to educate and try to get people to build bridges.”