The Anti Defamation League (ADL) reported last week that posts were appearing on anti-Semitic social media platforms like Telegram, 4chan, and Gab blaming the Jews for the outbreak of the coronavirus. One post on Telegram responded to news that three Israelis had been quarantined by posting, “3 down, 5,999,997 to go!”
Another post on Telegram instructed readers that if they get the virus they should go to the bank, take out hundreds of dollars in small bills, and, “take the shekels home and cough and lick them…Then go on a shopping spree!”
A 4chan commenter wrote, “Send the sick to Israel – if you already die at least take out as many Jews as you can.”
This is not limited to the U.S., of course. While Iranian officials have been busy pointing their fingers at the U.S., Abdullah Bozkurt, the Ankara Bureau Chief for Today’s Zaman, Turkey’s best selling English daily, tweeted that Jews created the coronavirus to “design the world, seize countries, neuter the world’s population.”
Jews, Zionists have organized & engineered #Corona virus as biological weapon just like bird flue & Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF).
They want to design the world, seize countries, neuter the world’s population.
Comments on President #Erdogan‘s TV network in #Turkey pic.twitter.com/m6l0W1Ty4f
— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) March 11, 2020
This phenomenon bears a disturbing resemblance to the persecution of European Jews during the Black Death in the mid-14th Century. As the plague swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating nearly half the population, people had little scientific understanding of the disease and were looking for an explanation.
Jews were often taken as scapegoats and accusations spread that Jews had caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells. This is likely because they were affected less than other people since many Jews chose not to use the common wells of towns and cities. Jews were also isolated in the ghettos, which meant in some places that Jews were less affected. Additionally, there are many Jewish laws that promote cleanliness. Some Jews confessed to poisoning wells under torture. In many cities, the civil authorities either did little to protect the Jewish communities or actually abetted the rioters.
The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at the University of Maryland had a conference last Tuesday titled “Corona and Countering the Occupation.” The agenda was listed simply as:
- How is corona being handled in Palestine?
- How does occupation worsen the situation?
- What is the best way to counter occupation?
According to the Facebook page for the event, no people attended the conference.
SJP campaigns for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and organizes events that accuse Israel of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Critics have charged that the SJP promotes antisemitism.
At a recent national conference, held at the University of Minnesota in November 2019, NSJP promoted terrorist Ahmed Saadat, General-Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Asad Abukhalil, a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University (Stanislaus) also saw the coronavirus as an opportunity to slam Israel.
Israel will—I am sure—have different medical procedures for Jews and non-Jews. Non-Jews will be put in mass prisons. https://t.co/2Xy4rwoRl6
— asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل (@asadabukhalil) March 8, 2020
It should be noted that no one, neither Jew nor non-Jew, has been imprisoned due to the coronavirus.
AbuKhalil describes himself as “a former Marxist–Leninist who is now an anarchist.” He is highly critical of the Israel lobby in the U.S.
Source: Israel in the News
