{"id":6122,"date":"2017-09-09T11:15:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T18:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=6122"},"modified":"2017-09-09T11:15:55","modified_gmt":"2017-09-09T18:15:55","slug":"soros-slander-reveals-anti-semitism-heart-far-right-eric-alterman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/09\/09\/soros-slander-reveals-anti-semitism-heart-far-right-eric-alterman\/","title":{"rendered":"“Soros Slander Reveals Anti-Semitism at the Heart of the Far Right” by Eric Alterman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A poster with US billionaire George Soros is pictured on July 6, 2017 in Szekesfehervar, Hungary. The Hungarian government announced on July 12, 2017 that it would end its billboard campaign targeting Soros, which is considered by Jewish organizations as likely to fuel anti-Semitic sentiments. (Photo by Attila Kisbenedek\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Dinesh D\u2019Souza\u2019s book smearing George Soros is factually false, morally reprehensible and nothing new.<\/h3>\n

September 8, 2017 (billmoyers.com)<\/p>\n

This post first appeared at<\/em>\u00a0The Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 31,\u00a0convicted felon<\/a>\u00a0and right-wing provocateur\u00a0Dinesh D\u2019Souza\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0that he thought it would be \u201cinteresting to see\u201d the liberal financier and philanthropist George Soros \u201cextradited to Israel & tried for his complicity in Nazi atrocities against Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that anti-Semitism has become a key element in exciting the passions of \u201cpopulist\u201d conservatives both here and abroad explains why so many far-right figures are willing to embrace it, regardless of the degree to which it stirs sleeping hatreds and imperils vulnerable Jewish communities.<\/div>\n

As he hawks his most recent book,\u00a0The Big Lie<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 ironically, a near-perfect description of its contents, which claim to reveal the Nazi roots of the American left \u2014 D\u2019Souza has tweeted countless versions of this particular big lie. With childish faux cleverness, he refers to Soros as\u00a0\u201cHitler\u2019s collection boy<\/a>\u201d\u00a0and claims that Soros \u201cliterally worked for Hitler.\u201d Right-wing talk-radio shows, websites and even a\u00a0Republican\u00a0gubernatorial candidate<\/a>\u00a0from Pennsylvania have parroted lines from his anti-Soros campaign.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Souza\u00a0told a right-wing talk-show host<\/a>\u00a0that he was \u201cdelighted to uncover\u201d Soros\u2019s history. But, as with almost every alleged discovery made by pro-Trump partisans, it is not only factually false and morally reprehensible; it is also old news. The charge has already been made by such far-right luminaries as\u00a0Glenn Beck<\/a>,\u00a0David Horowitz<\/a>,\u00a0Ann Coulter<\/a>,\u00a0Alex Jones<\/a>, and\u00a0Tony Blankley<\/a>\u00a0(who retracted it after I asked him to back it up). Perhaps most shamefully of all, former\u00a0New Republic<\/em>\u00a0owner and editor\u00a0Marty Peretz<\/a>\u00a0smeared Soros, calling him \u201ca young cog in the Hitlerite wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The microscopic kernel of truth in the accusation lies in the fact that Soros survived the Holocaust as a 14-year-old child in Budapest because he was hidden by a Ministry of Agriculture official who had a Jewish wife. Soros\u2019 father, Tivadar Soros, helped protect her, and in return the official agreed to let George pretend to be his Christian godson. On one occasion, rather than be left alone in Budapest for three days, the young teen accompanied the official, who was sent to inventory the estate of a Jewish family that had fled the country. That\u2019s it. The details of this episode are readily available and were covered in Michael Kaufman\u2019s 2002 book\u00a0Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire<\/em><\/a>. (I have also written about it in the past.)<\/p>\n

The Soros slander appears to derive from a bizarre\u00a060 Minutes<\/em>\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0conducted by Steve Kroft nearly 20 years ago. In his introduction, Kroft intoned: \u201cWhile hundreds of thousands of Jews were being shipped off to the death camps, George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds, confiscating property from the Jews.\u201d The accompanying footage showed masses of Hungarian Jews being led away at gunpoint as Kroft spoke. Then he turned to Soros accusingly: \u201cMy understanding is you went out with this protector of yours, who swore you were his adopted godson \u2026 went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from Jews.\u201d Clearly flummoxed by the moral and intellectual imbecility of the inquiry, Soros offered a stumbling response that failed to clarify the truth.<\/p>\n

Soros, as is well-known, is a billionaire banker and major funder of liberal causes. As such, he represents a near-perfect target for anti-Semites seeking to purvey the same sort of poison that has historically characterized propaganda like\u00a0The Protocols of the Elders of Zion<\/em>. The fact that anti-Semitism has become a key element in exciting the passions of \u201cpopulist\u201d conservatives both here and abroad explains why so many far-right figures are willing to embrace it, regardless of the degree to which it stirs sleeping hatreds and imperils vulnerable Jewish communities. The most worrisome recent manifestation comes from the Hungarian government, which launched a\u00a0poster campaign<\/a>\u00a0featuring a photograph of a smiling Soros with the warning \u201cDon\u2019t let Soros have the last laugh\u201d beneath the words: 99 percent reject illegal \u2028immigration.<\/p>\n

Aware of Hungary\u2019s history in the Holocaust and the fears of its remaining Jewish community, the Israeli ambassador, Yossi Amrani,\u00a0complained\u00a0to Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>: \u201cThe campaign not only evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear\u2026. It\u2019s our moral responsibility to raise a voice and call on the relevant authorities to exert their power and put an end to this cycle.\u201d Incredibly, Amrani\u2019s own government implicitly rebuked him by having his statement\u00a0\u201cclarified<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a\u00a0visit to Hungary<\/a>\u00a0scheduled, and he shares with Orb\u00e1n \u2014 and, of course, with Donald Trump \u2014 a commitment to xenophobic fearmongering as a means of shunting aside accusations of corruption, dishonesty and dysfunction. The Israeli Foreign Ministry immediately issued a statement accusing Soros of \u201ccontinuously undermining Israel\u2019s democratically elected governments\u201d by funding organizations \u201cthat defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself.\u201d Thus, because Soros is a critic of Israeli policies, the government that claims to represent the Jewish people excused an anti-Semitic campaign against a Holocaust refugee conducted by the leader of a nation that participated in the Holocaust. Let that one sink in for a minute.<\/p>\n

As with almost everything in American politics today, the charges against Soros are not really about Soros, much less what a 14-year-old boy did on one day during the German occupation of Hungary.\u00a0D\u2019Souza\u00a0thinks<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cformer Nazi collaborator George Soros should be investigated as a sponsor of domestic terrorism\u201d for his alleged sponsorship of antifa. Neither Soros nor his foundations support antifa in any way, but never mind that: At last count, more than 138,000 idiots had signed a\u00a0petition\u00a0at whitehouse.gov<\/a>\u00a0demanding that President Trump \u201cdeclare George Soros a terrorist and seize all of his related organizations\u2019 assets under RICO and NDAA law.\u201d Incredibly, this is where our politics has taken us in 2017, a time when the murderous madness that seized so much of Europe in the 1930s and \u201940s appears to be repeating itself \u2014 farcically, perhaps, but dangerously nevertheless.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ERIC ALTERMAN<\/a><\/h2>\n

Eric Alterman<\/strong>\u00a0is CUNY distinguished professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College, media columnist for\u00a0The Nation<\/em>, a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress and the author of\u00a0nine books<\/a>, including\u00a0When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences<\/em>\u00a0(2004),\u00a0Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama<\/em>\u00a0(2011) and\u00a0Inequality and One City: Bill de Blasio and the New York Experiment, Year One<\/em>\u00a0(2015). Follow him on Twitter:\u00a0@Eric_Alterman<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A poster with US billionaire George Soros is pictured on July 6, 2017 in Szekesfehervar, Hungary. The Hungarian government announced on July 12, 2017 that it would end its billboard campaign targeting Soros, which is considered by Jewish organizations as likely to fuel anti-Semitic sentiments. (Photo by Attila Kisbenedek\/AFP\/Getty Images)… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6123,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6122\/revisions\/6123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}