Is Tucker Carlson a Covert Antisemite? (Judean Rose)

Tucker Carlson is in the news because he just got dumped by Fox News. Some say it’s because of the lawsuit filed by former head of booking for the Tucker Carlson Tonight show, Abby Grossberg, against the network and several individuals at Fox, including Carlson. Grossberg says she “endured an extremely hostile work environment” and was subjected to antisemitic treatment by Alexander McCaskill and Justin Wells, both senior producers for Carlson’s show. 

Carlson is accused of misogyny in Abby Grossberg’s suit—though not antisemitism. That hasn’t stopped the media from suggesting otherwise by seeming to lump him together with McCaskill in blaring headlines about the suit and perhaps with good reason: the scent of antisemitism does seem to cling to Carlson, though there is never anything overt one can point to—no proof that Tucker Carlson hates Israel or the Jews.

In a 2021 piece for Haaretz, “Tucker Carlson Is Now a Big Problem for pro-Israel Conservatives” Jonathan S. Tobin writes, “One of the things that sets Carlson apart from virtually any other prominent conservative figure is his distinct lack of enthusiasm for Israel.”    

On the Carlson show, the barbarous Assad regime in Syria is justified for its supposed defense of Syrian Christians. Worries about Iran or even criticism of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Tehran — as much of a Republican mantra as opposition to Obamacare — is never heard.

Nor, for that matter, is any direct criticism of Israel. It is, like Sherlock Holmes' "Hound of the Baskervilles," the dog that never barks on Fox at 8pm EST.

Even when he hosts figures from the left who are well-known for their hate for Israel, such as Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, a notorious BDS advocate, the Jewish state never gets mentioned. The same is true for frequent guest journalist Glenn Greenwald, another supporter of the Palestinians. Greenwald discusses his disdain for Big Tech censorship on Carlson’s show, but not the Middle East.

While Carlson never bashed Trump for his historic support for Israel, he seized any chance he could to single out the administration figures most closely associated with the Jewish state for attention and often vicious critique.

Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner was a particular object of Carlson’s vitriol. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley — a favorite for Republican Jews and a 2024 hopeful who can likely count on the pro-Israel community’s support if she runs — is another Carlson punching bag.        

Tucker Carlson: "No one has more contempt for Donald Trump's voters than Jared Kushner and no one expresses it more frequently." https://t.co/x9PtN3TIry

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 2, 2020

That lack of enthusiasm has expressed itself is through his pooh-poohing of the Iranian nuclear threat and its quest for regional hegemony. More from Jonathan Tobin, this time from his 2021 piece, Why are Tucker Carlson and Peter Beinart trying to help Iran?:

[While] Trump was careful not to get suckered into a war, [his] vigorous approach to Iran, including the killing of its top terrorist—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Gen. Qassem Soleimani—met with Carlson’s disapproval. To his dismay, Trump’s policies on Iran were not much different from the positions of the dreaded neo-conservatives that Carlson despises . . .

Carlson’s reaction to Biden’s attack on the terrorists who killed an American last week was brutal, accusing the administration of “killing strangers” in a “far-away land” and bringing “war back to the Middle East after four years.” He mocked the idea that ISIS was a threat to the West and sees no need for “counter-terrorism” measures. He also defended the brutal Assad regime in Syria. Like Beinart, despite its genocidal threats towards Israel and his aggression towards Arab states in the region, Carlson dismisses the whole idea that the United States needs to do anything about Iran.

Curiously, Carlson is an outlier when it comes to the issue on which nearly all Republicans move in lockstep: Israel . . . In contrast with other Fox shows and other conservative venues, Israel is almost never mentioned on his show. But though liberals and Democrats are the main targets of his scorn, he reserves his greatest disdain for “neoconservatives” and others whom he believes have duped America into fighting “forever wars” in the Mideast instead of taking care of the needs of those at home. He seems particularly angry at Republicans who have become beloved by the pro-Israel community like former U.S. Ambassador the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Carlson is right that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly failures. But, like Beinart, he goes further and now claims that Syria and its ally Iran aren’t worth bothering about.

These Iran apologists may start out from different points and have different end goals. But both have little use for the alliance with Israel and bend over backwards to dismiss concerns that Iran, and its Islamist and authoritarian allies, are threats to America’s interests and values.

Many of those accusing Carlson of anti-Israelism and antisemitism, both now and in the past, have pointed to ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt’s call—to the World Federation of Advertisers—to boycott Fox, pointing to Carlson’s “open endorsement of the Great Replacement Theory.”:

Before I pause for Q&A, let me share with you another vivid example of how hate speech and white supremacy is moving from the margins into the mainstream.

Just two weeks ago on his Fox News program, Tucker Carlson openly endorsed the white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory.” If you haven’t heard of it, this is a virulently racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory that holds a secret group of Jewish people are plotting to flood the United States with non-whites and immigrants in order to commit “white genocide.”

Lots of us see the ADL and Greenblatt as irredeemably radical left, among them, this writer. We tend to discredit anything Greenblatt says or does. Some, in fact, point to Greenblatt’s decrial of the former Fox employee as proof that Tucker Carlson is innocent of these accusations and is neither a conspiracy theorist nor an antisemite. But even Greenblatt and the ADL sometimes get it right—just as a broken clock is right, twice a day.

Ben Sales expands on Greenblatt’s assertions:

On Monday, [Tucker Carlson] delivered a 20-minute defense of his “replacement” idea. At the end he took aim at the ADL, saying its defense of Israel’s Jewish majority and opposition to the return of Palestinian refugees contradicts its advocacy for immigrants in the United States.

“In the words of the ADL, why would a government subvert its own sovereign existence?” he wondered, referring to an essay on the ADL’s website. “Good question. Maybe ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt will join ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ some time to explain and tell us whether that same principle applies to the United States.”

Perhaps this sounded simply like Carlson going after a group that has been challenging him.

But for far-right extremists, his question went beyond a debate about immigration policy. Carlson was alluding to a meme that has traversed white supremacist circles for years and is a direct corollary to the “replacement” theory: Jews want to replace white people in the United States through mass immigration, the theory goes, but in Israel they protect their own race by restricting immigration.

White supremacists often refer to this idea by calling for “Open borders for Israel” — trollishly suggesting that American Jews should support similar immigration policy for the US as they do for Israel.

“Open borders for Israel” was a rallying cry at the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where far-right marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us.” A Facebook group called Open Borders for Israel features Pepe the Frog, a cartoon appropriated by the “alt-right.” An “Open Borders for Israel” face mask featuring an anti-Semitic caricature is available for purchase on at least one website, and a white supremacist group distributed flyers with the slogan at Texas Christian University last year, according to TCU360, a campus news website.

The contradiction only works in white supremacists’ imaginations. In reality, while American Jews tend to sympathize with immigrants and refugees, few Jews actually call for “open borders” in the US And many Jews and Jewish groups, including the ADL, are particularly critical of Israel’s restrictive refugee policy, which has been a topic of heated debate there for a decade.

In the “open borders for Israel” meme, white supremacists take substantive debate beyond the pale of legitimacy. Beyond critiquing policy, they suggest (falsely) that Israel’s immigration system is one more piece of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy white society, and that Jews are playing a dishonest double game by advocating separate policies for the United States and Israel.

Responding to Carlson’s salvo, directed at Greenblatt and the ADL, CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Gilead Ini tweeted:

Tucker is wrong because the ADL opposing a "right of return" is about preserving a single, functioning refuge for an oppressed people, slaughtered in the millions *as Jews,* expelled from their countries *as Jews,* whose population today is still below pre-Shoah numbers.

Surely Tucker understands the difference between what's described above and the situation of, say, Americans of English descent. But he doesn't care. He's about dulling rather than sharpening viewers understanding, for the sake of scoring his point.

1/ Tucker is wrong because the ADL opposing a "right of return" is about preserving a single, functioning refuge for an oppressed people, slaughtered in the millions *as Jews,* expelled from their countries *as Jews,* whose population today is still below pre-Shoah numbers. https://t.co/pNK9M9Mcw8

— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) April 13, 2021

Ini isn’t shy here. He says it very clearly: Tucker “understands the difference” between Israel’s “right of return” and the Biden Administration’s “open borders” policy in the United States. Carlson is being cagey and misleading here, suggesting to his viewers that when Jews make Aliyah to their indigenous territory, it is exactly the same as illegal immigrants flooding the border in Texas.

There is more than a hint of antisemitism here, but only if you’re willing to let go of loyalty to Tucker for the sake of loyalty to Israel and the Jewish people. Tucker knows better—knows exactly what he is doing when he says these things about Israel. The now-terminated Fox News employee is too smart not to understand the import of his own words, and the theory that some conclude lies behind these words. In other words, those who so “reasonably” deduce that Tucker was pointing only to what he sees as the double standard of the ADL, and not really suggesting that Jews have no right to immigrate to the Jewish State, delude themselves. Otherwise, he would not leave the matter fuzzy, unclarified, and open to interpretation.

Where do we draw the line in our understanding of Tucker’s equivocal rant? Did his words mean nothing more than a pointed rebuke of the liberal, two-faced ADL? Or was he couching his words to avoid outing himself as someone who, at the very least, thinks that Jews demand special treatment. At worst, Tucker may be, as Greenblatt asserts—though I am loathe to give the ADL credence or legitimacy in these matters—a firm believer in the Great Replacement Theory.

In January of this year, Tucker insulted Ahinoam Nini, a singer of international renown, known simply as “Noa,” no last name, outside of Israel—her real name is probably too difficult for most non-Hebrew speakers to pronounce. Nini is rabidly far-left, and her political views are anathema to Israelis on the right. Under the cover of Nini’s leftwing politics, Tucker gave himself permission to mock her singing and hand gestures. Then Carlson went further, drawing attention to the fact that Noa is Jewish: “Yeah, and those people run the world? They are so impressive!”

Let's check in on our lizard overlords in Davos, Switzerland. pic.twitter.com/fF9t609dj4

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 21, 2023

Was Tucker making fun of the Great Replacement Theory, leftists, the singer herself, or the Jewish people? All of the above? Who knows? Only those of us who have come to believe that where there’s antisemitic smoke, there’s antisemitic fire, will interpret these words as yet more evidence that Tucker Carlson is, indeed, an antisemite.

On October 6, 2022, Tucker Carlson hosted Kanye (Ye) West on his show. Not long after, Kanye took to Twitter, in his now famous antisemitic rant. You know—the one where he said, “I’m a bit sleepy now, but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 on the JEWISH PEOPLE.”

The indefatigable Jonathan Tobin once more documented the evidence of and the slippery nature of Tucker Carlson’s probable antisemitism six days later, when he drew a line between the Ye’s appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, and the “death con 3” tweet:

Carlson became something of a tribune for conservatives for his forthright condemnations of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 and willingness to speak out on other issues dear to the hearts of those on the political right. That made him a target for the left, with groups like the Anti-Defamation League seeking to de-platform him for his discussions of so-called “replacement theory” about immigration. This said more about the ADL’s partisanship than Carlson, since the idea that demographic change will alter American politics is one that originated with and continues to be advocated for by Democrats.

Here again, the fact that liberal groups have already “cried wolf’” about Carlson makes it easier for him to dismiss criticisms when he actually does something to mainstream hatred. This is what happened in the wake of the West interview.

Carlson embraced West because some of what he says is in line with conservative views about race-baiting (his endorsement of a “White Lives Matter” shirt) and opposition to abortion. On the program, the rapper/fashion mogul was allowed to claim that Jared Kushner pursued the Abraham Accords for financial profit rather than to advance peace.

Carlson is unique among leading conservative media figures in that he is not a supporter of Israel. He is careful, however, to stay away from discussions about the Jewish state, lest he run afoul of mainstream conservative opinion, which is overwhelmingly Zionist.

The word “Israel,” thus, is a word almost never heard from 8-9 p.m. on Fox News. And it is not surprising that Carlson would allow one of the Trump administration’s greatest triumphs to be denigrated in this particular manner.

While Carlson trumpeted the interview as proof that West was not, as many claim, a disturbed individual or a hatemonger, what was left out of the broadcast was as interesting as what was left in. In outtakes that have subsequently been published, West made numerous allusions to hateful Jewish stereotypes.

He even echoed assertions of the Black Israelite sect that African-Americans were the real Jews—effectually denying the existence of a Jewish people. That Carlson would leave this out of his show demonstrates that he was attempting to hide West’s anti-Semitism.

Days later, West dropped the veil. In a series of tweets, he announced that he was going to “def con 3 against the Jewish people.” Yet conservative talk-show host Candace Owens defended him, in essence instructing Jews on what does or does not constitute anti-Semitism.

Like liberals circling the wagons around left-wing haters of Israel and the Jews, Carlson and Owens are doing the same for West and for the same reason. In each case, legitimizing anti-Semitism is considered justified if it defends a political ally, regardless of the consequences.

Though Carlson censored the interview with Ye, editing out all West’s antisemitic crazy talk, Tucker ended the show by, according to Vice: “declaring that the artist—whose erratic behavior has for years been at the center of discussions about mental health and how Black men with mental health issues are treated— is ‘not crazy’ and ‘worth listening to.’ He also added, approvingly, that Ye was ‘getting bolder’ in what he has to say.”

Listen to Kanye here: "the thing about it being Adidas I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can't drop me ... now what ... now what ..." @adidas pic.twitter.com/Qu5LcZnmJj

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 20, 2022

Was Ye emboldened by the interview with Tucker? Did the fact that Tucker hid Ye’s hateful ravings from the public, encourage the bipolar rapper that Carlson actually approved of these antisemitic sentiments? Why did Tucker tell his audience that Ye is “not crazy,” “worth listening to” and “getting bolder in what he has to say” if not to show admiration and approval for Ye’s virulent dislike of the Jewish people?

The mask is slipping and some of us already see Tucker Carlson for what he is: a covert antisemite. Maybe it's time for Tucker to come out of the closet and put all doubt to rest. Unless, of course, he's afraid to be canceled—a process Fox News appears to have already begun.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Ken Roth doubles down on "Antisemitism is bad, but Jews provoke it" meme

In 2021, Ken Roth - then head of Human Rights Watch - posted a tweet that was widely derided as justifying antisemitism, as it blamed antisemitism on Israeli government actions:

Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government's conduct doesn't affect antisemitism.

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 18, 2021

Antisemitism is always wrong - but it is the Jews' fault for defending themselves and trying to stop thousands of rockets from being shot to kill other Jews.

This may be the only tweet Roth ever deleted, even though he never apologized, but only claimed that it was misinterpreted.

Well, he's done it again - blaming antisemitism not on antisemites, but on Jews.

The ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt wrote a good article in the Jerusalem Post that pointed out, as I did, that The Nation trafficked in antisemitic conspiracy theory territory by reporting - without any proof - that the reason Roth was rejected from a fellowship at Harvard was because of pressure by rich Jewish donors. 

Roth doesn't address that antisemitic conspiracy theory, which he has been himself pushing non-stop since he started his campaign of revenge at Harvard.

What he does highlight is a purposeful distortion of Greenblatt's words:

[Peter Beinart], and others, have ignored the long history of many of these groups, including Human Rights Watch, for their disproportionate and almost obsessive focus on Israel. Tellingly, neither Massing nor Beinart bothers to address the upsurge of antisemitism that ADL and others, including longtime HRW supporters, have shown that accompanies these kinds of reports.

They also ignored the weaponization of these reports, which effectively delegitimize Israel’s existence, deeming it a pariah state to be placed in the company of the worst regimes in history. 

Greenblatt notes that antisemites will use HRW and others' obsessive (and provably false) anti-Israel reports as excuses for their hate.

Roth, instead, says that this proves that antisemitism is partially the Jews' fault:

When antisemitism surges around a peak of Israeli government abuses, Israeli partisans howl if anyone points it out, but when rights groups report on Israeli repression, there is an "upsurge of antisemitism that...accompanies these...reports,” says @ADL

Roth gets is exactly wrong - and he knows it. And this tweet proves his antisemitism.

First, one cannot ignore that Roth uses the word "howl" here - essentially calling Zionists animals. Roth has never tweeted that insulting word about any other group in his 95,000 tweets.

Secondly, Greenblatt pointed out how biased reports that attack Israel's very legitimacy contribute to attacks on Jews worldwide. He is saying that Roth's own antisemitism helps incite antisemitic attacks. Roth distorts it to implying that the attacks are a (rational) response to "Israeli repression." 

This is a classic case of blaming the victim - Jews - for antisemitism. It also mirrors Hamas and Islamic Jihad justifying terror attacks as "natural responses to Zionist aggression."

Thirdly, no Zionists "howl" when people point out that antisemitic attacks use Israel as an excuse. That is in fact proof that modern anti-Zionism is indeed a newer flavor of antisemitism. everyone knows that Israel is used as an excuse for attacking Jews. The complaints are when people like Roth blame Jewish actions for antisemitism, as he is doing here. 

This tweet is Roth doubling down on his disgraceful earlier tweet, and attacking those who were offended by it.

Is there any other victim of bigotry that Roth has ever blamed for not only their own persecution - but for calling out those who justify and "contextualize" it?

This tweet in itself proves what Roth has been denying for the past two weeks. He doesn't engage in "criticism of Israel" - he is obsessively biased against Israel in ways that go way beyond criticism of every other nation. 

And his obsession with demonizing and delegitimizing Israel and her supporters, of defending the indefensible, and of blaming antisemitism itself on Jews is unquestionably antisemitic. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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12/20 Links Pt2: To tackle the oldest hatred, it’s not enough to just teach the Holocaust; Caroline Glick: Hanukkah and the new imperialist assault on Judaism; Airbnb launches positive series of articles about Israeli hosts

From Ian:

Stephen Pollard: To tackle the oldest hatred, it’s not enough to just teach the Holocaust

In much of the West there is an assumption among both Jews and those who sympathize with them that teaching people about the Holocaust somehow inoculates them against anti-Semitism. Stephen Pollard observes that education about the Shoah in Britain is very good, but evidence shows that hostility toward Jews is nonetheless on the rise:

Last year, I was told by the anti-extremism educator Charlotte Littlewood of her experience in one school. After giving training to a sixth form about 9/11, a teacher approached her about the session. Why, he asked, had she ignored the “evidence” that 9/11 was organized by the Jews?

Ms. Littlewood is the author of a study cited today by the government’s so-called “anti-Semitism tsar” Lord Mann in his ground-breaking report calling for all schools to have policies to recognize and combat anti-Semitism, which should also be part of teacher training. (One might also point out the inherent irony of the phrase “anti-Semitism tsar.”)

Her study found that recorded anti-Semitic incidents in schools in England have nearly trebled over the past five years. But a mere 47 schools have any kind of formal, written policy that “might make staff more aware of the vicious forms of anti-Semitic bullying”—such as making a hissing sound when Jewish pupils enter a classroom in a reference to the Nazi gas chambers.

[In fact], some of those who think of themselves as being profoundly anti-racist nonetheless harbor stereotypically anti-Semitic thoughts about Jews—that they are rich, they control the media, they stick together, and so on. They won’t even recognize that these are racist ideas, seeing them merely as statements of fact. This explains how you can teach the Holocaust and yet not make any impact on dealing with living, breathing anti-Semitism. Or, to put it another way, the bar for anti-Jewish racism is set at the level of killing Jews.

A Festival of Light for Dark Times

A Hanukkah message from Theodor Herzl, 125 years ago

As noted by the historian Daniel Polisar, Herzl was likely writing autobiographically. He had customarily purchased a Christmas tree for his family and was more well-versed in Latin, Greek, and German than he was in Hebrew. But he was developing the realization that candles of national pride and Jewish tradition, once lit, could attract companions. Writing a few months after the First Zionist Congress—whose 125th anniversary was marked in Basel in 2022—Herzl hoped for the progressing of his project of national reclamation. He anticipated the most desperate, the young and the poor, would be the first to see the light.

Then the others join in, all those who love justice, truth, liberty, progress, humanity, and beauty. When all the candles are ablaze everyone must stop in amazement and rejoice at what has been wrought. And no office is more blessed than that of a servant of this light.

Though Hanukkah is undoubtedly a uniquely Jewish holiday, commemorating the bloody battle for the preservation of its ancient practices and beliefs 2,000 years ago, all Americans may find inspiration in Herzl’s depiction. After all, imagining the reinvigoration of political unity and patriotic pride in the United States today seems no less far-fetched than Herzl’s dream for a renewed Israel seemed on the eve of 1898. Even if we willed it, we undoubtedly feel, it would probably remain just a dream.

Yet, during the American colonies’ earliest decades, and as the colonists subsequently developed hope for independence from Britain, they looked to the branches of a tree to reflect the potential of shared national purpose. Old elms were deemed “Liberty Trees,” a symbol of what one observer called “that Liberty which our Forefathers sought out, and found under Trees, and in the Wilderness.” The biblically tinged image, like the menorah, acknowledges separate branches, but emphasizes the shared root that feeds its growth. It reminds us that by drawing from our common core we might yet expand outward and upward.

In the dark desperation of our current societal disunity, consideration of what Herzl termed the “marvel of the Maccabees” may serve as a hopeful reminder, a means of reclaiming our own sense of national pride and purpose. If we remind ourselves and the next generation of the faith in which we were forged, and envision a brighter, more joyous tomorrow, we may yet find companions amid the slumbering darkness. We may yet find ourselves servants of the light.

Ruthie Blum: No, Gray Lady, the ‘bedrock’ of US-Israel relations isn’t a two-state solution

In a social media post on Sunday, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu blasted the Gray Lady for its gall.

“After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, The New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government,” he tweeted, in response to a weekend editorial titled: “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy.”

He was right to fight back, as the piece not only asserted that his coalition-in-formation poses a “significant threat to Israel’s future—its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland”; it also urged the administration in Washington and the American public to support the “moderating forces” in the country that are “already planning energetic resistance.”

Not that Bibi’s response will do any good, other than reminding those who long ago realized that the “newspaper of record”—a broken one where Israel is concerned—doesn’t deserve its self-anointed reputation as a reliable source on any issue.

Nor did its horror at the return to the helm of the longest-serving premier in Israel’s history come as a shock to anyone, least of all Netanyahu himself. On the contrary, had it expressed a more positive view of the cabinet now taking shape in Jerusalem, it would have lost the remainder of its shrinking readership to publications that refuse to compromise on their unabashed radicalism.

In fairness, albeit ill-deserved, the Times and other “anti-Israel-is-the-new-pro-Israel” periodicals abroad are taking their cue from the “anybody but Bibi” contingent at home. The latter’s way of bemoaning its uncontestable Nov. 1 ballot-box defeat has been to decry the imminent demise of democracy at the hands of extremists bent on transforming the Jewish state into an unrecognizable, racist, homophobic theocracy.

The irony is that the bulk of the wokeratti, who can take considerable credit for the electorate’s rightward pull, didn’t use to praise the country for its liberal values. The sudden nostalgia—while the current caretaker government of Yair Lapid hasn’t even left its perch—is not merely laughable, it explains the Times’s disingenuous reference to “Israel’s proud tradition as a boisterous and pluralistic democracy.”

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Our Jewish Response to Antisemitism Isn't Working (Judean Rose)

When Kanye (Ye) West finally managed to out himself as an antisemite, the response was predictable. Demand an apology. Demand that the offender’s lucrative business deals be canceled. This is the pattern we’ve seen over the past several years, as antisemitism grows, even in America, the Goldene Medina. But is it working?

It certainly didn’t work with West. The rapper only doubled down and refused to apologize, even after several very profitable business contracts were canceled, as a result. 

Kanye (Ye) West

The following exchange took place during an interview with Piers Morgan:

Piers Morgan: “Do you now regret saying ‘death con 3 on Jewish people’… Are you sorry you said that?”

Kanye: “No… Absolutely not.”  

Bottom of the barrel. Kanye West goes on Piers Morgan’s show, presumably because that’s the only show that would have him on, and offers most ridiculous half-assed apology ever. pic.twitter.com/HzOSvLAwA7

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) October 19, 2022

In other words, despite the fact that Ye lost out on billions of dollars in potential earnings, he has shown little to no contrition for the hateful things he said about the Jewish people.

Yet Morgan persisted until he at last managed to eke out a semblance of an apology from West:
“I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘Death Con’ — the confusion that I caused. I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through, and that I used my platform, where you say hurt people hurt people, and I was hurt.”

Some media outlets referred to Kanye’s non-apology as an apology.

(Yahoo)

(The Wrap)

Others were more honest.

(TMZ)

(Daily Beast)

Once allowed back on Twitter after a six-week ban, Ye collectively mocked the Jewish people by tweeting a single word, “Shalom.” As if to say, “You Jews exploited me and stole my money as you always do, but I refused to bow my head.”

 

Shalom : )

— ye (@kanyewest) November 20, 2022

Kyrie Irving

The same irritating pattern was repeated with athlete Kyrie Irving. There was a tweet with hateful content, this time in the form of a link to an antisemitic movie: "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America." The ADL put pressure on a sports shoe company—Nike—with West it was Adidas—and an apology was demanded but not received. Irving was also suspended from his position as a guard for the Brooklyn Nets. 

Sources: Nets have delivered Kyrie Irving six items he must complete to return to team:

- Apologize/condemn movie
- $500K donation to anti-hate causes
- Sensitivity training
- Antisemitic training
- Meet with ADL, Jewish leaders
- Meet with Joe Tsai to demonstrate understanding

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 6, 2022

But Irving was smarter than Ye, or at least saner. He figured out that he stood to lose a LOT of money if he didn’t apologize to those damned Jews. So after he tried to get away with not apologizing, followed by a non-apology that everyone knew was a non-apology, he finally made an actual apology—or at least said the words—whether he meant them is anyone’s guess (and I’m guessing not).

The non-apology:

   

The apology: 

“I don’t have hate in my heart for the Jewish people or anyone that identifies as a Jew . . . The difficult aspect is just processing all this, understanding the power of my voice, the influence I have. I am no one’s idol, but I am a human being that wants to make [an] impact and change.”

“I really want to focus on the hurt that I caused. I just want to apologize deeply for all my actions throughout the time that it’s been since the post was first put up. I’ve had a lot of time to think,” said Irving.

Having at last issued an apology—whether heartfelt or not—Kyrie was reinstated by the Nets.

Nick Cannon

The antisemitism of Kyrie and Ye are lately in the news. But we’ve seen this show before. There was Nick Cannon’s 2020 podcast with Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin. From the transcript:

Nick Cannon: Right. So let’s dive into it. Who are they? When we speak up, because this is where it truly is. And we talk about the six corporations, when we go as deep as the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the 13 families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America. When we talk about the people who, if we were truly the children of Israel, and we’re defining who the Jewish people are, because I feel like if we actually can understand that construct, then we can see that there is no hate involved. When we talk about the lies, the deceit, how the fake dollar controls all of this, then maybe we can get to the reason why they wanted to silence you, why they want to silence Minister Farrakhan, and they want to throw that we are having hate speech when it’s never hate speech, when it’s not. You can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people, when we are the same people that who they want to be, that’s our birthright.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: It’s our birthright.

Nick Cannon: So if that’s truly our birthright, there’s no hate involved.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: It’s not.

Nick Cannon: How did this message gets so misconstrued?

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: When we came back to claim it. When we woke up and we came back to claim … If you steal my bicycle, when we were six years old, and you riding around the hood with my bike, now I’m 12, and I understand …

Nick Cannon: I want my bike back.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: I want my bike back, man. Now you’re going to kick up dust.

Nick Cannon: Right, right. Right.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: You understand what I’m saying?

Nick Cannon:  And I’m baller enough to get my bike back. . .  

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: You understand what I’m saying? That’s showing and proving that that’s my bike, and I’m here to claim it, man. You got, you have to give it back. So when you start hearing songs like Michael Jackson “hike me, kike me” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, nah, you can’t say that.

Nick Cannon: You can’t say that. That’s hate speech.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: When you see Puffy talking about “I’m getting paid like the Hebrew,” you know what I’m saying?

Nick Cannon: Right, right. They want to mute the Hebrew.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: They want to mute that. You understand what I’m saying?

Nick Cannon: Even we the true Hebrews.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Exactly. So we can’t even tell the truth now.

Nick Cannon: Right.

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Not on record, not on television shows, not on YouTube. . . .

Nick Cannon: Because we’re not saying anything hateful, and that’s the thing when they want to put that on the Minister Farrakhan, was saying, even the term “white devils” or just devils in general …

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: Right, right, right.

Nick Cannon: … when he was really speaking about the people who devalue our communities and themselves, and that’s really where the word “devil” comes from and how he’s speaking it. But they want to take the sound bites and say, “This is antisemitic.” And so how does that occur? And why does that occur? Is that great? Is that spiritual warfare or is that just truly just us just silencing each other?

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: That’s the psychological covert, meaning hidden, war on the higher, infinite power healing our people.

Further on in the podcast is this exchange:

Nick Cannon: So ultimately are we saying that there’s a certain group of people that maybe they’re scared of the truth?

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: I think there’s Jewish people, but I just think there’s a group of Jewish people inside of that. You could call them Zionists. You can call them whatever.

Nick Cannon: Let’s dig into that for a second because that’s where I, and even sometimes I find myself wanting to debate this idea, and it gets real wishy-washy and unclear for me when we give so much power to the “they,” and then the theys then turn into the Illuminati, the Zionists, the Rothschilds …

Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin: The Freemasons.

Nick Cannon: The Bilderberg group, the Freemason. And as a community I feel, and I’ve done this myself, I want to blame others for the position that I’m currently in. And that often becomes when you say the privileged white girlfriend comes into the room or the apologists or these people come in and say, “Why aren’t you guys over slavery already?” or “Why are you always complaining? And why don’t you do for yourself? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And my people were also oppressed.”

But as was the case for Kyrie Irving, money talks, nobody walks. After ViacomCBS dropped Cannon like a hot potato, he found himself (shocker!) ready to apologize.  

 

That’s the pattern: demand an apology—and it doesn’t seem to matter whether or not it is sincere—and hit the hater in the wallet. Perhaps it’s time to question the wisdom of this method. Do the antisemitic beliefs evaporate once the apology is issued? Do the apologies matter at all? And doesn’t placing financial pressure on antisemitic offenders only reinforce classic tropes about Jews, money, and power?

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt

From the ADL’s blog, Unpacking Kanye West’s Antisemitic Remarks:

Claims About Jewish Money and Greed

Ye’s claim that Jared Kushner’s actions between Israel and Arab nations was driven by his desire for financial gain corroborates long-standing antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish control of money and financial institutions. His vague suggestion that a prominent Jewish holiday is associated with “financial engineering” also reinforces this stereotype. Overall, Ye's suggestions about Jewish people, holidays and the monetary implications of the two lends credence to the baseless idea that Jews can leverage their power for insidious purposes because of the stronghold they have on financial institutions.

From the ADL’s resource, Ye (Kanye West): What You Need to Know:

Claims about Jewish Control of Media and Government

In many of his recent interviews, Ye repeatedly referenced purported Jewish control over various industries — he used the phrase “Jewish media” over twenty times on “Drink Champs” alone. Ye also spoke about “Jewish Zionists” and “Zionist media handlers.” He made multiple references to prominent Jewish individuals, including George Soros — the Hungarian Jewish billionaire, philanthropist and Holocaust survivor who is a frequent bogeyman for both avowed antisemites and the political right — and Jared Kushner, as supposed examples of Jewish power.

Ye’s insinuations about Jewish control perpetuate the longstanding antisemitic trope that Jews wield an inordinate amount of power and exert control over global systems as part of a quest for world domination. These views are regularly promoted by extremists and antisemites of a wide variety of ideologies, from white supremacists and extremist Black nationalist groups to conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.

·         “Jared Kushner is an example of how the Jewish people have their hand on every single business that controls the world.” (Ye on “Drink Champs,” 10/16/22)

·         “We’re not going to be owned by the Jewish media anymore…Every celebrity has Jewish people in their contract…And these people, if you say anything out of the line with the agenda, then your career can be over.” (Ye on “Cuomo,” 10/17/22)

·         “Kim [Kardashian, Ye’s ex-wife] has Zionist media handlers surrounding her.” (Ye on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” 10/19/22)

·         “I said the Jewish people because, by the way, it’s a barrage…George Soros knows, like, ‘wow, this guy is like a younger guy that’s looking at what I did and looking at how I control the world silently and he’s calling it out’…That’s what George Soros sees, right, when he’s dealing with me.” (Ye on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” 10/24/22) 

Claims that Jews Exploit Black Artists for Financial Gain

Antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish power and greed intersect in Ye’s comments about purported Jewish control of the music industry and exploitation of Black artists. This trope has been present in the discourse of other Black performers and activists in the past and is a common talking point within more extremist groups. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, for example, frequently makes this accusation.

·         “Jewish people have owned the Black voice…The Jewish community, especially in the music industry, in the entertainment [industry] period, they’ll take one of us, the brightest of us, right, that can really feed a whole village, and they’ll take us and milk us till we die.” (Ye on “Drink Champs,” 10/16/22)

·         “There’s so many Black musicians signed to Jewish record labels and those Jewish records labels take ownership not only of the publishing…but also ownership of the culture itself…It’s like a modern-day slavery.” (Ye on “Cuomo,” 10/17/22)

·         “I’ve been wronged so many times by Jewish businessmen…They’re taking money out of my children’s mouths and putting it into their children’s mouths!” (Ye on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” 10/19/22)

·         “90% of Black people in entertainment — from sports, to music, to acting — are in some way tied into Jewish businesspeople…Like if Rahm [Emanuel] is sitting next to [President] Obama or Jared [Kushner] sitting next to [President] Trump, there’s a Jewish person right there controlling the country, the Jewish people controlling who gets the best video or not, controlling what the media says about me.” (Ye on the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” 10/24/22) 

So let’s see, Jonathan Greenblatt, after pressuring Adidas (of the Nazi past) to break its very generous contract with Ye, educates us on classic Jewish tropes relating to money and power. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms? Of course it is. And a lot of Jews think the ADL has outlived its usefulness, and in fact, causes more harm than good.

The Dassler shoe factory--where Adidas and Puma were born--in Herzogenaurach, Germany circa 1930s. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Liel Liebovitz lays it out for us in No More ADL:

Pop quiz:

Which of these two individuals do you find more problematic?

Kyrie Irving, a kooky basketball player who believes that the Earth is flat, that JFK was shot by bankers, that the COVID vaccines were secretly a plot to connect all Black people to a supercomputer, and that Jews worship Satan and launched the slave trade?

Or Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, who accepted $500,000 from Irving last week without even meeting or even talking to the all-star—and who was then forced to give back the donation when Irving blatantly refused to apologize?

Let’s think about it for a minute. One of these guys is a weirdo with dumb opinions he may or may not actually believe. The other is running a soulless racket which just made it clear that you can say whatever you want about the Jews and buy your indulgences at a discount price.

Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely believe that Irving’s endorsement of a Black nationalist documentary based on an obscure Jew-hating book, to say nothing of Kanye West’s meltdown, will most likely contribute to a surge in antisemitism in America, particularly in the Black community. But we Jews don’t control Kyrie Irving; in theory, we do control the ADL, and we shouldn’t want our chief defense group to behave in a way that advances antisemitic conspiracy theories about shadowy Jews trafficking in money and influence for fun and profit.

As for the pro forma apologies, not everyone is so eager to accept them. Meghan McCain, for instance, who, remarking on Nick Cannon’s apology said that antisemitism remains “the last form of passable bigotry in America.”

Meghan McCain at the No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity with the Jewish People, July 11, 2021, (Ted Eytan, Wikipedia.)

“This isn’t just about Nick Cannon,” said McCain. “It’s why we, as Americans, seem to find more forgiveness in our heart for antisemitism than we do of racism of any other kind.”

“I think my concern is, for some reason, antisemitism is something we let people forgive a lot easier than any other forms of bigotry and racism.” McCain noted that “we’re having conversations about canceling Dr. Seuss,” but we say nothing about works by other authors which contain “deeply antisemitic characters.”

“I find that people who say antisemitic things are forgiven a lot easier than anything else,” said McCain, “And I think that’s something we really need to examine as a society.”

McCain is right. We are too forgiving, and the pattern of demanding apologies and forcing companies to cancel big name antisemites just isn’t working. If it were working, we’d see less antisemitism, rather than more, as in our current situation, with both Ye and Irving coming out of the (antisemitic) closet, so to speak.

Raoul Wallenberg

The problem perhaps, is that the demands and pressures are coming from the Jews, when it would be preferable to have non-Jews fight this battle for us. But we have learned an unfortunate lesson from our tragic Jewish history. People like McCain, and even more so, righteous gentiles like Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, are rare birds. For the most part, no one sticks up for the Jews, except for the Jews themselves.  

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Want to see how dishonest anti-Zionist groups are? Look at this press release!

CAIR and a bunch of other anti-Israel groups, most of them Muslim, issued this press release:

In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful  

We, the undersigned Muslim American organizations, express our unified support for the human rights of all people, including Palestinians. We also express our unified rejection of attempts to smear and silence members of our community who advocate for Palestinian human rights.  

Far too often, Muslim Americans and others come under attack for daring to call on our nation to stop supporting the Israeli government’s human rights abuses against the Palestinian people. ADL Director Jonathan Greenblatt’s decision to attack prominent Jewish, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian human rights activists, including college students, was only the latest example of this unacceptable pattern.  

This must end. Groups like the ADL must not marginalize and slander members of our community working for human rights. As Muslim Americans, we stand united with each other in upholding justice. We also stand with the Jewish Americans, Christian Americans, Arab Americans, Palestinian Americans, African Americans, and many others who have been unfairly attacked for supporting justice for all.  

The American Muslim community has vocally, collectively, and consistently stood up against all forms of hatred, including racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism. We have also worked closely with our friends and partners in the Jewish community and other communities to confront such threats.  

That’s because our faith teaches us to support justice for all people. No matter what attacks we face, we will continue to do so–together, God willing.  

There is literally nothing true in this statement.

Jonathan Greenblatt did not attack any "human rights organizations" or activists. He did not insult any Muslims as Muslims. 

He said that anti-Zionism - saying that Jews have no rights to a state of their own, and such a state is inherently illegitimate - is antisemitism. 

He didn't say that supporting Palestinians is antisemitic. Not one word of his speech indicated anything like that. On the contrary, he supports a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. He supports Palestinian human rights. He supports the right of protest. He supports the right to criticize Israel. 

This statement didn't even include the words "anti-Zionism" because they don't want to address the actual message Greenblatt said.  Instead of arguing with what Greenblatt said, they made up lies about what he said - and attacked that.

Now, that's dishonesty.

The Muslim groups' press release did say "Greenblatt also claimed that the ADL now considers any criticism of Zionism to be anti-Semitism." That is also a lie. He never said that. He never claimed that criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitism, because everything can be legitimately criticized. Wanting to see Israel destroyed and its adherents canceled and shunned is not "criticism."

It is hate.

In addition, the claim that these groups stand up against antisemitism is equally a lie. There are daily antisemitic attacks in Muslim and Arab media - Holocaust denial, calling Jews "sons of apes and pigs," denying Jewish history, claiming Jews are not real Jews - and not once have any of these organizations criticized fellow Muslims for antisemitism. 

The press release and statement show clearly that anti-Zionist organizations are incapable of telling the truth - because the truth proves that they are bigots. They instead lie about what their critics are saying to label them.

But beyond this, they are making a slander against all Muslims themselves. Because they are claiming, in the name of all Muslims, that there is no difference between being "pro-Palestinian" and being "anti-Zionist." They are saying, in the name of all Muslims, that those who marched on Sunday saying that murdering Jewish civilians in Israel is legitimate "resistance" are merely "supportive of Palestinian rights" and not hateful supporters of terror.

If their claim is correct, then according to their own logic, all Muslims are antisemitic bigots.

But they aren't. And Zionists don't make that claim.

These self-proclaimed leaders of Muslims are the bigots. And they have no compunction about supporting terrorism against, and the ethnic cleansing of, Jews in the Middle East. But beyond that, they want you to believe that they represent all Muslims - and in doing that, they do as much to spread Islamophobia as any right wing group.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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