Part of a series on |
Antisemitism |
---|
Category |
Hungarian-American billionaire businessman and philanthropist George Soros's philanthropy and support for progressive causes has made him the subject of many conspiracy theories, most of them originating from the political right. [1] [2] Veronika Bondarenko, writing for Business Insider said: "For two decades, some have seen Soros as a kind of puppet master secretly controlling the global economy and politics." [3] The New York Times describes the allegations as moving "from the dark corners of the internet and talk radio" to "the very center of the political debate" by 2018. [4] Professor Armin Langer has noted that Soros is "the perfect code word" for conspiracy theories that unite antisemitism and Islamophobia. [5]
One prominent Soros-related conspiracy theory is that he is behind the European migrant crisis or importing migrants to European countries. Under the current second premiership of Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian government has spent millions of dollars on a poster campaign demonizing Soros. According to anthropologist Ivan Kalmar, "[m]any of his most outspoken enemies inside and outside Hungary saw him as leading an international cabal that included other Jews such as the Rothschilds, as well as Freemasons and Illuminati." [6] [7]
Soros has become a magnet for such theories, with opponents claiming he is behind such diverse events as the 2017 Women's March, the fact-checking website Snopes, the gun-control activism engaged in by the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, [8] [9] [10] the October 2018 Central American immigrant caravans, and protests against the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. [4] [11] In a tweet, President Donald Trump also claimed Soros was backing the protests against Kavanaugh's nomination. [12]
American conservatives picked up on the thread in the late 2000s, spearheaded by Fox News. Bill O'Reilly gave an almost ten-minute monologue on Soros in 2007, calling him an "extremist" and claiming he was "off-the-charts dangerous." [9]
Anthropologist Ivan Kalmar writes that it is "not clear where the Soros Myth began... A likely candidate for the dubious honour of originating it is the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), founded by the far-right American commentator Lyndon LaRouche. An article in the 1 November 1996 edition accuses the financier of manipulating the world’s finances in partnership with the Rothschilds, who 'launched Soros's career'", citing a piece by writer F. William Engdahl. [13] Similarly, author Michael Wohlraich identifies Engdahl as the first US populariser of Soros conspiracy theories, noting the same text. [14] This has been described by the anti-fascist group Unicorn Riot as "an example of the anti-Semitic "rootless cosmopolitan" trope. [15]
In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, the prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for welcoming Myanmar as a member. With a history of antisemitic remarks, Mahathir made specific reference to Soros's Jewish background ("It is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge"), [13] [16] and implied Soros was orchestrating the crash as part of a larger Jewish conspiracy. Nine years later, in 2006, Mahathir met with Soros and afterward stated that he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the crisis. [17] In 1998's The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered, Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows:
The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997 was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity ... By the beginning of 1997, it was clear to Soros Fund Management that the discrepancy between the trade account and the capital account was becoming untenable. We sold short the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringgit early in 1997 with maturities ranging from six months to a year. (That is, we entered into contracts to deliver at future dates Thai baht and Malaysian ringgit that we did not currently hold.) Subsequently, Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia accused me of causing the crisis, a wholly unfounded accusation. We were not sellers of the currency during or several months before the crisis; on the contrary, we were buyers when the currencies began to decline—we were purchasing ringgits to realize the profits on our earlier speculation. (Much too soon, as it turned out. We left most of the potential gain on the table because we were afraid that Mahathir would impose capital controls. He did so, but much later.) [18]
The 3 April 2016 release date of the Panama Papers, also called Offshoregate (Russian : "Офшоргейта") was just before Vladimir Putin's largest annual press conference, the All-Russian Popular Front (ONF) "Truth and Justice" in St. Petersburg (Russian : Медиа-форум Общероссийского народного фронта (ОНФ) «Правда и справедливость» в Санкт-Петербурге) which was held 4–7 April 2016. [19] During this press conference, Vladimir Putin stated that Julian Assange's WikiLeaks told him that George Soros and his Open Society Foundations had provided funding for Offshoregate and, on behalf of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov stated that Offshoregate was intended to denigrate (Russian : "вброс") "Putin and Russia personally". [20] [21]
After being ousted from office in the wake of the aforementioned Panama Papers scandal, Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson accused Soros of having bankrolled a conspiracy to remove him from power. [22] [23] It was later noted that Soros himself had also been implicated in the Panama Papers, casting doubt on the prime minister's theory. [24]
Soros's opposition to Brexit led to a front page on the United Kingdom's Conservative Party-supporting newspaper The Daily Telegraph in February 2018, which was accused of antisemitism for claiming he was involved in a supposed "secret plot" for the country's voters to reverse the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. [25] While The Daily Telegraph did not mention that Soros is Jewish, his opposition to Britain leaving the European Union had been reported elsewhere in less conspiratorial terms. [26] Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle , said on Twitter: "The point is that language matters so much and this is exactly the language being used by antisemites here and abroad." [27] [28] In October 2019, the then Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, accused Soros of being the "funder-in-chief" of the Remain campaign, and was subsequently accused of antisemitism by opposition MPs. [29]
Following a December 20, 1998, 60 Minutes interview, [30] [31] in which Soros related his experiences of when, at the age of 13, the Nazis occupied his native Hungary, [32] [33] right-wing figures such as Alex Jones, Dinesh D'Souza, Glenn Beck, Roseanne Barr, [34] James Woods, Ann Coulter, [33] Louie Gohmert, [31] Marjorie Taylor Greene, [35] and Donald Trump Jr., [36] promulgated the false conspiracy theory, [37] [38] which has been described as antisemitic, that Soros was a Nazi collaborator who turned in other Jews and stole their property during the occupation. [39] [40] [41]
In 2018, private intelligence agency of Israeli origins Black Cube supported Viktor Orban's virulently anti-Semitic re-election campaign gaining taped telephone conversations of individuals associated with George Soros who was actively opposing Orban's re-election. [42] [43] [44] [45] According to Israeli politician Tamar Zandberg, Hungary was “carrying out an antisemitic campaign against Soros” and that Benjamin Netanyahu, which she stated that his Likud has dangerous ties to "extreme right-wing parties in Europe", openly supported Orban's anti-Semitic re-election campaign. [46] She stated that Black Cube's support for Orban is an "Israeli embarrassment." [46]
In October 2018, Soros was accused of funding the Central American migrant caravans heading toward the United States. [47] [48] [49] The theory that Soros was causing Central American migration at the southern US border apparently dates back to late March 2018. [50] The October 2018 strain of the theory has been described to combine antisemitism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and "the specter of powerful foreign agents controlling major world events in pursuit of a hidden agenda", connecting Soros and other wealthy individuals of Jewish faith or background to the October caravan. [50] Then-US president Donald Trump was among those promoting the conspiracy theory. [51] Both Cesar Sayoc, the perpetrator of the October 2018 attempted bombings of prominent Democratic Party officials, and Robert Bowers, the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, referred to this conspiracy theory on social media before their crimes. [52] [53]
In November 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced Soros while speaking about the political purges in Turkey, saying: "The person who financed terrorists during the Gezi incidents is already in prison. And who is behind him? The famous Hungarian Jew Soros. This is a man who assigns people to divide nations and shatter them." [54]
In November 2019, attorney Joseph diGenova, who is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Department of Justice and the FBI, [63] asserted on Fox News without evidence that Soros "controls a very large part of the career foreign service of the United States State Department" and "also controls the activities of FBI agents overseas who work for NGOs – work with NGOs. That was very evident in Ukraine." [64] Soros's Open Society Foundations described diGenova's claims as "beyond rhetorical ugliness, beyond fiction, beyond ludicrous" and requested that Fox News provide an on-air retraction of diGenova's claims, and stop providing diGenova with a platform. [65] Although the network never publicly announced it had banned him, diGenova has not appeared on Fox following the incident. [66] In September 2020, diGenova suggested that Fox News is also controlled by Soros. [66]
A study by Zignal Labs found that unsubstantiated claims of involvement by Soros were one of three dominant themes in misinformation and conspiracy theories around the 2020 George Floyd protests, alongside claims that Floyd's murder had been faked and claims of involvement by antifa groups. [67] The Anti-Defamation League estimated that over four days after Floyd's murder, negative Twitter messages about Soros increased from about 20,000 per day to about 500,000 per day. [68]
After the July 2020 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes on the border, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, stated that the 2018 Armenian revolution was "another provocation by Soros and his entourage", and called the government of the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, the "agents of the Soros Foundation", [69] citing the aid for the COVID-19 pandemic in Armenia by the Soros Foundation. [70] Aliyev added that there were "no traces of the Soros Foundation in Azerbaijan" because it had "cut off their legs", as they were "poisoning the minds of youth", turning them "against their state". [71] [72] During the height of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war in October, Aliyev labeled Soros's activities a "destructive, movement, and a colonial movement". He also added that Soros "came to power in Armenia today, but failed." [73]
During the 2022 Brazilian general election, Ciro Gomes, the presidential candidate of the centre-left Democratic Labour Party, claimed in various campaign adverts that the Socialism and Liberty Party was funded by Soros. These adverts were ordered to be removed by the Superior Electoral Court. [74]
When Donald Trump was indicted by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg in 2023, numerous Republicans claimed that Bragg was "bought and paid for" by Soros. This claim was promoted and spread by Trump himself as well as Ron DeSantis, Senator J. D. Vance, Senator Ron Johnson, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, and Representative Paul Gosar, who called Bragg a "Soros D.A.". [75] The only actual connection is that Soros donated to progressive criminal justice reform group Color of Change, which contributed to Bragg's campaign. Soros was only one of many donors to Color of Change, and he had no contact with Bragg, whom he has never met. [76] [77]
Also in 2023, Tesla, Inc./SpaceX CEO and owner of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) Elon Musk compared George Soros to Jewish Marvel Comics supervillain Magneto and accused him of wanting "to erode the very fabric of civilization" because he "hates humanity". He later alleged that the Soros organization wants "nothing less than the destruction of western civilization” in reply to a X user speculating about a “George Soros led invasion” of Europe by North African immigrants. [78] [79]
Central European University is a private research university with a campus in Vienna and a non-degree, research and civic engagement presence in Budapest. The university offers graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities. Admissions are classified as highly selective with an acceptance rate of 13%. All CEU programs and courses are accredited in Austria and the United States.
Viktor Mihály Orbán is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002, and the leader of the Fidesz political party since 2003, and previously from 1993 to 2000. He was reelected as prime minister in 2014, 2018, and 2022. On 29 November 2020, he became the country's longest-serving prime minister.
Louis Carl Dobbs was an American conservative political commentator, author, and television host who presented Moneyline from 1980 to 2009 and 2011 to 2021. From 2021 until his death, he hosted The Great America Show on iHeartRadio and loudobbs.com.
Victoria Ann Toensing is an American attorney, Republican Party operative and with her husband, Joseph diGenova, a partner in the Washington law firm diGenova & Toensing. Toensing and diGenova frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network. In 2019, Toensing and diGenova began representing Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in his efforts to block extradition to the United States under a federal indictment and became embroiled in the Trump–Ukraine scandal. The couple has worked with Rudy Giuliani in support of President Donald Trump beginning in 2018, and was named to join a legal team led by Giuliani to overturn the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in which Trump was defeated.
George Soros is a Hungarian-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. As of October 2023, he had a net worth of US$6.7 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations, of which $15 billion has already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune. In 2020, Forbes called Soros the "most generous giver". He is a resident of New York.
Historians continue to study and debate the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism has similarities and distinctions with its European counterpart.
George Eli Birnbaum is an American political consultant. He worked on the United States congressional and senatorial races. In 1998, he moved to Israel to work as a consultant to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, became his chief of staff, and afterwards formed a partnership with political consultant Arthur Finkelstein. He was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Atlanta, Georgia.
Antisemitism in contemporary Hungary principally takes the form of negative stereotypes relating to Jews, although historically it manifested itself more violently. Studies show antisemitism has become more prevalent since the fall of Communism, particularly among the younger generations. Surveys performed from 2009 and beyond have consistently found high levels of antisemitic feelings amongst the general population.
The white genocide, white extinction, or white replacement conspiracy theory is a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims there is a deliberate plot to cause the extinction of white people through forced assimilation, mass immigration, and/or violent genocide. It purports that this goal is advanced through the promotion of miscegenation, interracial marriage, mass non-white immigration, racial integration, low fertility rates, abortion, pornography, LGBT identities, governmental land-confiscation from whites, organised violence, and eliminationism in majority white countries. Under some theories, Black people, Hispanics, and Muslims are blamed for the secret plot, but usually as more fertile immigrants, invaders, or violent aggressors, rather than as the masterminds. A related, but distinct, conspiracy theory is the Great Replacement theory.
"Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents Western Marxism as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness. The conspiracy theory posits that there is an ongoing and intentional academic and intellectual effort to subvert Western society via a planned culture war that undermines the supposed Christian values of traditionalist conservatism and seeks to replace them with culturally liberal values.
Joseph diGenova is an American lawyer and political commentator who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988. He and his wife, Victoria Toensing, are partners in the Washington, D.C., law firm diGenova and Toensing. He is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the Department of Justice and the FBI. He and Toensing frequently appeared on Fox News and Fox Business channels, until diGenova used a November 2019 appearance to spread conspiracy theories about George Soros, leading to widespread calls for him to be banned from the network.
Rick Wiles is a far-right American conspiracy theorist, pundit, and Christian fundamentalist senior pastor at the non-denominational Flowing Streams Church. He is the founder of TruNews, a website promoting racist, homophobic, and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Since the foundation of the Conservative Party in 1834, there have been numerous instances of antisemitism in the party, from both Conservative party leaders and other party figures.
TruNews is an American far-right fake news website and channel owned and hosted by Rick Wiles. TruNews frequently publishes conspiracy theories in addition to racist, anti-LGBT, antisemitic, and Islamophobic content. It has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's political views have shifted during his lengthy career. Support for "Asian values," liberal Islam and Malay nationalism have long been part of Mahathir's political ideals. He has long been a critic of the foreign policy of the United States and other Western nations. Mahathirism has had an influence over subsequent Malaysian administrations.
Antisemitism in the People's Republic of China is a mostly 21st century phenomenon and is complicated by the fact that there is little ground for antisemitism in China in historical sources. In the 2020s, antisemitic conspiracy theories in China began to spread and intensify. Some Chinese people believe in antisemitic tropes that Jews secretly rule the world.
Right wing antiglobalism is a political position which argues that globalization endangers national economies and identities, and promotes immigration. Right wing antiglobalism frequently uses the term Globalist as a pejorative, and in various conspiracy theories, notably linking with the New World Order conspiracy theory
DiGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, both used to work within the US Justice Department, but later made their reputations peddling conspiracy theories on TV about the DOJ and FBI.
DiGenova is known as a fierce defender of Trump who has used frequent guest appearances on Fox News to advance far-out conspiracy theories that the FBI is trying to frame the president.
Joseph diGenova has promoted conspiracy theories about a 'deep state' attempt to 'frame' Trump and his campaign for criminal activities
DiGenova, a regular Fox News guest, had spouted conspiracy theories about the Mueller probe's motives against Trump.