US and Israeli envoys clash over Soros — RT World News
Washington thinks criticizing the financier is anti-Semitic, while the Israeli government thinks supporting him is anti-Semitic
US and Israeli envoys for anti-Semitism have taken opposing positions on whether supporters or critics of Jewish financier George Soros are anti-Semitic. The argument started when Twitter CEO Elon Musk compared Soros to a cartoon supervillain.
In a tweet on Monday, Musk said Soros reminded him “Magneto,” a mutant-supremacist scientist in Marvel’s “X-Men” universe. When a commentator pointed out that Magneto was portrayed – like Soros – as a Holocaust survivor and the two “good intentions,” Musk doubled down.
“You assume these are good intentions”, he wrote. “They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.
Musk was soon accused of anti-Semitism, with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt saying that by comparing the billionaire “to a Jewish supervillain”, Musk would “embolish the extremists”.
The Israeli government disagreed. “The Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an incredible entrepreneur and role model,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli tweeted on Thursday, adding that “The criticism of Soros – who funds the organizations most hostile to the Jewish people and the State of Israel – is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the contrary!”
Soros has donated more than $32 billion to liberal political causes through his NGO Open Society Foundations, and was the largest donor in last year’s US midterm elections. offering $128 million to Democratic Party candidates and organizations. Soros funds a number of Palestinian activist groups that accuse the Israeli state of war crimes, and several international organizations that promote boycotts of Israeli products and sanctions against its leaders.
In the United States, the Biden administration has sided with its main donor against Chikli’s criticism.
“Regardless of what one thinks of the politics or policies of George Soros, it is utterly hypocritical to deny that many ad hominem attacks against him are based on classic anti-Semitic tropes and rhetoric,” US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, tweeted Friday.
“In bygone times, anti-Semites invoked the Rothschild family to further their conspiracies against the Jews. Today they use Soros to do it,” she stated.
Neither Soros nor his Open Society Foundations responded to Musk’s comments. When asked on Tuesday if he was worried his controversial tweets would drive advertisers away from Twitter, Musk told CNBC News “I don’t care. I’ll say what I mean, and if the consequences are losing money, so be it.
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