Anti-Semitism unites far-right, far-left, and Islamist extremists. The cross-ideological exploitation of the pandemic has seen the anti-Semitic ‘Ring of Fire’ come to the fore.
What ties these extremists is a shared belief that Western market-based societies are constructed to serve the financial interests of the international Jewry. The imaginary enemy is an all-powerful, transnational Jewish financier class which controls the global banking system, owns a disproportionate number of shares in high-technology sectors, lavishly bankrolls pro-market political parties, and aggressively promotes Zionist propaganda through the mainstream media. The warped imagination of anti-Semitic extremists is well-documented.
There is growing evidence that extremists of various ideological shades are weaponising the pandemic to further their anti-Semitic objectives. Islamist extremists were exploiting the coronavirus outbreak in its early stages, with some labelling it a ‘Soldier of God’ which was punishing China for its systematic oppression of Uyghur Muslims. Never mind that this supposed ‘Agent of Allah’ has now claimed the lives of people in Sunni-majority countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, and Morocco.
Along with pushing the theory that the new coronavirus has been sent by God to punish disbelievers for disobeying the conventional teachings of Islam, Islamists have also been guilty of repackaging coronavirus to peddle anti-Semitic conspiracies. During Friday prayers, Gaza-based imam Jamil Al-Mutawa preached that God created Covid-19 to eradicate infidels and Israelis, claiming that Muslims were least impacted by the virus. During the sermon, the imam also noted that there was not a single confirmed case of Covid-19 in the Gaza Strip. The very next day, Palestinian health authorities declared the first COVID-19 infections in the densely-populated territory.
Indeed, there is a significant overlap between the anti-Semitic conspiracies being promoted by Islamist extremists and far-right ideologues over the new coronavirus. Algerian Islamist ‘news service’ Al Masdar spread the conspiracy theory that Zionist forces were behind the ‘manufacturing’ of the new coronavirus and stand to profit from the subsequent demand for vaccines.
Similar conspiracies have been peddled by far-right extremists through their online content. On their website, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) in the US has uploaded podcasts where participants label COVID-19 as a “Jewish-created virus”, offering the view that Jews “engineered it themselves” and have a “racket” in place to exploit under-resourced national healthcare systems under the global pandemic.
Far-right extremists in the online space have also been behind the idea of a ‘Zionist plot’ to depopulate the world, with posts on peripheral platforms such as 8chan suggesting that Jews are “using” the coronavirus to kill non-Jews. Meanwhile, the American Nazi Party has expressed concerns that the “Zionist-occupied government” is exploiting the coronavirus outbreak to “cut down” on people’s rights and create an authoritarian police state.
Far-left ideologues have also joined the anti-Semitic party when it comes to Covid-19. This should come as no surprise, given the countless examples of noxious anti-Semitism on the British far-left in recent years. Lest we forget, the Labour Party is still the subject of an Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation over allegations of institutionalised anti-Semitism.
Across the pond, National Justice, an American publication which is “dedicated to shattering the narratives of the controlled left and right in post-truth America”, has previously published material expressing solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn, who was supposedly betrayed by “elements of the Judeo-Left”. It has also published claims that a Jewish health agency has donated fifty ventilators to Borough Park hospital in New York – on the condition that Jewish Covid-19 patients are given priority access over “Gentiles” (a biblical term for non-Jews). In addition to this, the site warned people to reject any kind of vaccine produced by the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), labelling it a “highly secretive biological warfare unit of the Israeli military”. This strikes parallels with a tweet posted by Iranian Press TV journalist Roshan M. Salih, who remarked that he would rather take his chances with the coronavirus “than consume an Israeli vaccine”.
The exploitation of the COVID-19 global pandemic has exposed how anti-Semitic extremists, of different ideological colours, find common ground through their shared anti-Jewish hatred. It also proves that in these anxious and uncertain times, there are extremists who thrive on exploiting crises to further their anti-Semitic objectives.
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