Immediately
after news broke on January 2, 2020, that a U.S. drone strike had killed
Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani, antisemitic and anti-Zionist conspiracy
theories began circulating online and in public statements in the region.
These included the claim that Jews and/or Zionists control President Trump and
the U.S. government, and are manipulating the United States to fight wars on
Israel’s behalf. This is the typical behavior and rhetoric of antisemites, who
view virtually every world event as justification for their bigoted views.
Criticism of Israel, or claiming that the Trump
Administration is considering the interests of a close ally as it formulates
its Iran strategy, is not inherently antisemitic. However, the steady drumbeat
of anti-Israel rhetoric from Islamists, anti-Zionist activists and ideologues
may contribute to an environment in which more overtly antisemitic beliefs take
root.
Expressions of antisemitism in the wake of the
Soleimani assassination have been most noticeable among white supremacists and
other blatant antisemites. They have also been broadcast on the Iranian media
outlet Press TV, and featured in public statements from officials inside Iran
and by the Islamic terrorist organizations they support. The anti-Zionist left
has also weighed in on the Soleimani killing.
White Supremacists
Among the antisemitic conspiracy theories about the
U.S. assassination of General Soleimani and U.S. policy towards Iran posited by
white supremacists:
·
Hunter Wallace claimed that the killing of General
Soleimani marked the beginning of “World War Jew.” In another blog post Wallace
warned his readers that “if you support and vote for Donald Trump in 2020, you
are voting for a Jewish war with Iran” on behalf of “Sheldon Adelson and the
other Jewish donors who fund the GOP.”
·
Antisemitic
and white supremacist ideologue Kevin MacDonald tweeted that President Trump’s
Iran policy is guided by those who desire “a non-White US while once again
Israel is getting the US to fight its war.”
·
After
the assassination, Mike Enoch urged his Twitter followers to “Just
jump in to [sic] the fray with full on opposition to more ZOG wars and
aggression. It's just the right thing to do.”
·
David Duke blamed the killing on “Zio U.S.
traitors,” and praised Soleimani, tweeting, “General Soleimani along with
Christian Russia and the courageous Syrian people, KEPT 3 & 1/2 million
Christians in Syria from being slaughtered by ISIS and al Qaeda!” He added,
“The real evil is the Zionist Warmongers who are leading Trump & America
into HELL!"
·
Brandon
Martinez wrote on a popular white supremacist site that “Trump was too stupid
to launch this attack and was assuredly following the orders of maniac Jews”
and that “a clique of Jews in Israel” want the U.S. to “make war with all of
[Israel’s] towel-headed neighbors by proxy, using goyim foot-soldiers to do
[Israel’s] dirty work.” In another post, he wrote, “Genocidal Jews want white
people to believe that Iran poses a threat to us so that we fight another war
for them…The Jewish race has always manipulated and conscripted others into
fighting off their racial enemies. They did it in World War II, in Iraq in
2003, and have been lobbying ever since to get another bloodbath going in
Iran.”
·
Following
Soleimani’s death, white supremacist Paul Nehlen wrote on Telegram, “The kikes who own
Orange Man were gonna have their war with Iran one way or another.” He
suggested that his readers “go fill up your gas tanks tonight. Gasoline will
spike like a MF while you sleep. The kikes will have had advanced knowledge of
this…watch all sorts of economic smash [sic] in the next 72 hours.”
Other
Antisemites
·
Jonas
E. Alexis, writing on the antisemitic website Veterans Today, wrote that
although President Trump knows that a war with Iran will cost the U.S. a great
deal of money, he is nevertheless compelled to “obey the satanic powers in
Israel” who want such a war. He warned that “International Zionism is still
sucking the blood of virtually every nation on earth….the Israeli regime and
their puppets in the United States represent Satanism. Trump is one of their
preachers.” Alexis also claimed that Jewish influence has led the U.S. to
become “the embodiment of evil because politicians have embraced an essentially
Talmudic principle which basically says that perpetual wars and ethnic
cleansing in the Middle East and elsewhere are good for America, despite
evidence to the contrary.
·
Conspiracy
theorist and antisemite, Henry Makow, speculated on his eponymous website that
President Trump’s policy on Iran marks the beginning of a third world war
between the “Islamic world” and “political Zionists” in order to “cull the
Goyim” and to bring about “Masonic Jewish banker world government.” Makow
claimed this will fulfill an “Illuminati” plan to foment three World Wars in
order to destroy Christianity and implement “the pure doctrine of Lucifer”
across the entire world.* In a separate post, Makow claimed that the “rush to
war with Iran” will allow the Chabad Jewish Hassidic sect to fulfill a
“demented vision of world hegemony.” Makow has said he believes that President
Trump is being manipulated by his Jewish daughter and son-in-law to “to bring
about the prophesied cataclysm that will usher in [Jewish] Messianic rule.”
·
Writing
on Veterans Today, Holocaust denier and antisemitic conspiracy theorist, Ian
Greenhalgh, drew comparisons between the U.S. assassination of General
Soleimani and the murder of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (whose killing in
1914 is generally considered to have precipitated WWI). Greenhalgh blames Jews
for both killings:
[Prior to WWI] Jewish financiers
employed Jewish criminals to murder [Franz Ferdinand] in order to gain revenge
and ignite a war that would benefit them immensely while at the same time,
devastating much of the world and killing tens of millions of troublesome
goyim. Do you see the glaring similarities to the murder of General Soleimani?
The general was taken out by criminals in the employ of the same handful of
Jewish crime families that a century earlier had employed Serbian Jewish
criminals to take out Franz Ferdinand. Once again, it is in the interests of
the criminal enterprise known as Israel that this murder has been carried out.
·
Antisemitic
propagandist Brother Nathanael Kapner’s “RealJewNews” website
presented Kapner’s interview with “ex green beret” Joe Cortina. Cortina said
that a potential war with Iran will be “brought to you by IsraHell and its pawn
in the White House, and by the infestation of treasonous Jewish agents
throughout America, along with countless Gentile shills who make a living out
of sending our boys into harm’s way.” Cortina continued, “Our Christian boys
are fighting and dying for IsraHell, for Jewish Supremacy worldwide, for Jewry
that doesn’t give a damn for anyone but their own. Even allies, once used, like
Soleimani, they toss in the trash. Wake up Americans! Remove the shackles that
Jewry has bound you with hand and foot!”
Press
TV
Iranian media outlet Press TV has featured several
noteworthy conspiracy theorists and their antisemitic theories about the
killing of General Soleimani and the conflict between the U.S. and Iran:
·
Conspiracy
theorist Gordon Duff, who runs the antisemitic website Veterans
Today, told the Iranian media outlet Press TV that Ivanka Trump Kushner, whom
he claims was “placed next to Trump as his Israeli handler,” instructed her
father to kill Soleimani after she “received [orders] from Israel.”
·
Antisemitic
ideologue, E. Michael Jones, told Press TV that President Trump
attacked Soleimani because “the Jews want Iran to attack America” in order to
provoke an Iranian response, because they “want America to get into a war with
Iran, for Israel.” He added that “the immediate cause” of the
confrontation between the U.S. and Iran was President Trump’s withdrawal from
the JCPOA “because of the money that came from three rich Jews, three rich
American Jews – Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, Bernard Marcus…[who were] the
three main contributors of the Republican Party and the three main contributors
to Donald Trump’s election campaign.” In the same interview, Jones claimed that
Jews were responsible for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 on behalf of
Israel, adding, “it was Americans who died there, it wasn’t Israelis… probably
no Jew died in [that] war.”
This
is not the first time Press TV has promoted antisemitic conspiracy
theories about U.S. policy on Iran. In April 2019, Press TV
aired an interview with antisemite Kevin Barrett, who claimed that “the Zionist
lobby… created the pretexts for those wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] and
pushed the US into those wars,” adding that the Zionist lobby “likely is trying
to push the US into a war with Iran." In May 2019, Barret told Press TV
that Trump’s policy on Iran is guided by “[Jewish] Chabad Lubavitch people [and
by] his son-in-law Jared Kushner [who] is from the Kosher Nostra crime family.”
Barrett claimed that these Jews “would like nothing better than a big Middle
East war which would give them their excuse to finish the ethnic cleansing of
Palestine by murdering or expelling the remaining millions of Palestinians from
historic Palestine. That’s the endgame of these fanatics.”
The Anti-Zionist Left
Anti-Zionist groups and leaders have been critical
of the U.S. action against Soleimani, and frequently point out that the
Netanyahu and Trump administrations are aligned on their anti-Iran agenda.
The repeated claim that Trump’s decision to attack
was influenced by Israel and/or American Jews may be seen as an invocation
of the antisemitic trope that Jews exert global control or pursuit of their own
agenda. Similarly, demonizing Sheldon Adelson for his purported influence over
the Trump administration is conceptually similar to right-wing attacks on George Soros. Although it is not reasonable
to label any individual expression of Israeli influence or reference to Sheldon
Adelson as antisemitic, the phenomenon as a whole serves as a reminder that
conspiratorial claims about Israeli or Zionist influence over the American
political system can create fertile ground for more overt antisemitic
expressions.
·
Max
Blumenthal, a well-known left-wing journalist and anti-Israel activist,
responded to President Trump’s tweet of the American flag following the
assassination with a tweet of his own: “You misspelled the Israeli flag.”
·
Writing
on the left-wing site CounterPunch, Jefferson Morley wrote, “After Mossad
targeted Soleimani, Trump pulled the trigger, adding, “Trump has now fulfilled
the wishes of Mossad. After proclaiming his intention to end America’s ‘stupid
endless wars,’ the president has effectively declared war on the largest
country in the region in solidarity with Israel, the most unpopular country in
the Middle East.”
·
Anti-Israel
activist Philip Weiss argued on his blog that although
President Trump sometimes presents himself as an antiwar candidate, his
decision to attack General Soleimani was calculated to please Israel and
enhance his reelection chances. “Trump is as shrewd as they come and I don’t think
he acted to endanger his political fortunes, but to enhance them. Look who is
pleased by the attack, Israel,” Weiss wrote. “No doubt Sheldon Adelson, Trump’s
biggest donor at well over $100 million to Republican causes, is also pleased
by the strike.” It is noteworthy that in July 2019, Weiss wrote another column
entitled, “Why are there so many Zionist Jews on Trump’s Middle East team?” In
the column Weiss enumerated five “Zionist Jews” and claimed that the “U.S.
Treasury Department’s portfolio on Iran…certainly appears to be a branch of the
Israel lobby.” He also lamented, “I get attacked as self-hating/antisemitic
[when] counting how many Zionist Jews are in sensitive government positions.”
·
Former
U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney tweeted, “Guaranteed: Trump’s
@POTUS statement about Soleimani and Iran was written in Israel. ALL LIES.
@realDonaldTrump Zionist puppet.”
Iran
and the Muslim World: Iranian public figures
and others across the region made anti-Jewish statements related to the
killing, whereas statements by Hamas said the US operation was at the behest of
“Zionists.”
·
Iran’s Mehr News Agency published a commentary
from a professor at Imam Sadegh University proclaiming that Soleimani’s death
foreshadows the defeat of America and the downfall of the transgressor Israel
because Imam Sadegh taught that the destruction of the rebellious Jew was a
sign of end times and that the Jewish people would rise up in rebellion and
corruption but that God’s strong servants would defeat them, pursuing the Jews
from house to house, and this is a prophecy that must be fulfilled, and the
narrator asks who are these strong men who [shall] chase the Jews from house to
house.
·
Senior
Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, Member of the Assembly of Experts:
He declared that to make sense of Soleimani’s death one should look at the
battle over Medina during Quranic times, when “all the Jews and polytheists
were united together” and “went to war against the Prophet”.
·
Hamas - “We condemn this debauchery and the
ongoing American crimes in sowing and spreading discord in the region, in
service of the criminal Zionist enemy.
·
A
Houthi' rally in Saan’a commemorating Soleimani featured chants and signs with
their motto "death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews"
·
A
cartoon featured in Gaza’s pro-Hamas Filastin depicts a Jewish person profiting
off inter-Muslim disputes (the text says: “the assassination of Soleimani”).
*Makow bases his claim on an apocryphal
letter that was allegedly written by Civil War General Albert Pike in 1871.
Conspiracy theorists believe that Pike’s letter, whose text was first
publicized by a website in 2003, claimed that the Illuminati would foment WWI
between the Russian Czar on one side and the British and Germans on the other
in order to establish the rule of Communism in Russia. WWII would be waged
between “the Fascists and the political Zionists” so that “Nazism [will] be
destroyed” and in order to “institute a sovereign state of Israel in
Palestine.” Makow claims that the killing of Soleimani marks the inception of
WWIII, which Pike allegedly describes as a battle between “political Zionists
and the leaders of the Islamic World [sic],” after which the “pure doctrine of
Lucifer” would destroy Christianity and conquer the world. The fact that the
terms “Nazism” and “Communism” did not exist in 1871 does not dissuade the
conspiracy theorists; Makow claims that the inclusion of those terms in the
letter actually substantiates his belief that both political movements would
eventually be created by the Illuminati, the purported authors of the letter,
whom he believes had settled on names for those movements as early as 1871.
Source: ADL
