I suppose it’s not surprising that anti-Semites would use the coronavirus pandemic as a platform for spewing Jew-hatred and conspiracy theories. Still, I was astounded to read David Duke’s tweet a few weeks ago, in which he asked: “Does president Donald Trump have coronavirus? Are Israel and the Global Zionist elite up to their old tricks?”
I asked Dr. Dov Waxman what he thinks about Duke’s tweet and other linkages being made between the coronavirus and Jews. Waxman joined the UCLA faculty this year as the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies and Director of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. He is very concerned.
“We have to recognize,” Waxman told me, “that this is a moment of potentially great danger because it has all the ingredients for a surge of anti-Semitism: a fatal, invisible threat that crosses national borders, widespread social disruption and economic hardship, and heightened public fear and anxiety. In these dire circumstances, if anti-Semitic ideas are allowed to be propagated without any strong pushback, then they can find a receptive audience and gradually become normalized and increasingly acceptable.”
In these dire circumstances, if anti-Semitic ideas are allowed to be propagated without any strong pushback, then they can find a receptive audience and gradually become normalized and increasingly acceptable
What about Israel? Is there a similar scapegoating of the Jewish state? “Of course,” Waxman continues. “Israel is often the central actor nowadays for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Israel takes the role of the Jew, the collective Jew. Hence, Zionists and Israel are functioning as stand-in for all Jews, operating behind the scenes as this nefarious force controlling the world.”
Waxman notes that people are looking for something to blame for the coronavirus and that Israel is an easy target. However ludicrous, the notion that Israel or Jews are responsible for this pandemic can find a large audience if not challenged. Waxman suggests that we heed the warning of Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, to not just dismiss these ideas as the rantings of some extremist in some basement somewhere.
“The first step,” Waxman says, “is to acknowledge the danger that people are fearing.” That acknowledgment opens a door to provide reasonable explanations.
“In some cases, like in the case of Israel being responsible for the Coronavirus,” Waxman says, “the logic just doesn’t hold up. Why would Israel decide to infect the population in Wuhan, China? One can simply dismantle the idea logically.”
“In some cases, like in the case of Israel being responsible for the Coronavirus,” Waxman says, “the logic just doesn’t hold up. Why would Israel decide to infect the population in Wuhan, China? One can simply dismantle the idea logically.”
What about what happened when a small number of attendees at the AIPAC conference were identified as carriers? Anti-Semitic tweets accusing Jews of spreading the virus abounded. Would the same approach have worked? “Yes,” Waxman says, “there was a factual kernel of truth to be acknowledged. And once you’re talking about facts, you can point out that at the very same time, there were cases cropping up in San Francisco and Seattle and all over the country.”
“People might say that if you engage with these ideas, you lend them some kind of legitimacy, says Waxman.” But we are not engaging with the purveyors of these ideas. We are trying to stop the ideas from spreading.”
“The vast majority of people are not motivated by hate. Many of them are obsessively reading what they see online about the coronavirus, perhaps unable to distinguish credible from illogical explanations, and looking to make sense of the frightening world in which they’re living in. They are our audience.”
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