An online
campaign of antisemitism has been directed at Jared Kushner, President Donald
Trump’s son-in-law and advisor over the past week. It comes in the context of
Trump’s removal of chief strategist Stephen Bannon from the National Security Council and
reports about a feud between Bannon and Kushner as well as airstrikes in Syria
in response to the chemical attack last week.
This campaign of
antisemitism has been driven by white supremacists and antisemites and has all
the hallmarks of classic Jewish conspiracy theories. The narratives include
accusations that Jews in the Trump Administration are trying to start a war to
advance the interests of Israel. They contend that Trump has abandoned his
“America First” policy, which the alt right supported, because he is being
manipulated by Kushner and other Jewish advisors.
The antisemitic
social media campaign, which features hashtags on Twitter such as #firekushner,
#kushneratwar, #kushnerswar, appears to have begun on April 5 with a few tweets
describing the administration’s actions as a betrayal alongside the
#firekushner hashtag.
#fireKushner and bring back Bannon to the NSC now #SyriaStrikes no more globalist wars https://t.co/97PMg4hTXV
— AltGrey (@AltGrey1) April 7, 2017
On April 6, @AltGrey1 sent several tweets including the #firekushner and
#syriahoax hashtags. One of the tweets read: “no more jewish wars #fireKushner
#Syriahoax.” The tweets started circulating among more influential users
and the total mentions of #firekushner surpassed 100.
#KushnerAtWar is doing what he does for a living, …driving brown people out of valuable real estate to make way for wealthy Jewish tenants pic.twitter.com/BZqUfPOzH2
— TradWorker (@TradWorker) April 8, 2017
no more jewish wars #fireKushner #Syriahoax https://t.co/xrDgxHI7do
— AltGrey (@AltGrey1) April 7, 2017
Throughout the day on April 7, discussion
around the hashtag steadily rose, primarily among apparent alt right
supporters, including retweeted posts from @bakedalaska, the Twitter handle of
Tim Treadstone, an alt-right social media personality with a history of antisemitic tweets.
The same day, alt right leader and antisemite Richard Spencer tweeted: “#FireKushner No one voted for Kushner.
Indeed, many of us voted against people like Kushner having power.” This post
was retweeted over 1000 times and #firekushner began its trend upward.
By end of day on April 7, #Firekushner, along
with #kushneratwar and #kushnerswar became a top trending topic with
over 130,000 mentions, many of which featured antisemitic invective directed at
Jared Kushner.
Indeed, well known antisemites such as David
Duke joined the chorus on Twitter, tweeting out statements such as:
We are being brought down from within. ZIO Supremacists
are the true enemy of the American people… not Assad, not Putin. #FireKushner
This is what happens when America is led by Jewish
supremacists. These traitors put #IsraelFirst while we pay the price. #NoWarsForIsrael
Israelis are involved in espionage against Western,
Christian nations? No way – greatest ally would never do such a thing. #FireKushner
“Believe me folks, I know all of the best people.” – Donald J. Trump
ZOG pic.twitter.com/gdV1lyF6Zw
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) April 9, 2017
When Pierce was alive we didn’t have memes, irony or the “Alt Right.” But we damn sure knew that a Jewish son-in-law was bad news. pic.twitter.com/mprfPvoBTI
— Andrew Joyce (@AJOccidental) April 8, 2017
With over 300,000 mentions, it appears that antisemites
were able to use Twitter to become part of the story. But this commentary
was hardly limited to Twitter:
– Erik Striker, a writer
for The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi alt right website, referred to Kushner as
“President Kushner” and said that his “vital interest as a Chabad Lubavitcher
[a Jewish Hasidic sect] in foreign policy is to advance Israel at the expense
of America.”
– Lee Rogers, who runs
another neo-Nazi site, Infostormer, wrote, “I fully supporting [sic] the
ousting of Kushner and every other kike from Trump’s cabinet. This Jew Kushner
has been especially bad news from the start considering his marriage to his
daughter Ivanka. These kikes do not believe in America First. They believe in
putting the interests of Israel and world Jewry first. That’s what this strike
against Syria did. It put the interests of the Jews first.”
– Brad Griffin, aka Hunter
Wallace, writing on his blog Occidental Dissent, argued, “The fact remains that
all of us, myself included, may have grossly underestimated the impact of the
Jews inhabiting Trump’s inner circle. While we attacked anyone and everything
that even spoke out lightly against the ‘God Emperor,’ a bona fide Court Jew
and his race-traitor wife slid their way into the halls of the White House and
corrupted everything that we found so appealing about the rise of The Don.”
Writing for the site altright.com, Wallace also asserted, “It is Jared Kushner
and Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs, pushing aside the #MAGA
people in order to start new wars on behalf of Bibi Netanyahu and Sheldon
Adelson.”
This online antisemitism also had some
apparent a real world impact:
#PhillyActivism pic.twitter.com/z97HO26xAp
— Keystone United (@KeystoneUnited) April 9, 2017
– A Twitter post from the white supremacist Traditionalist Workers
Partyclaims that a banner on an overpass over I-95 in Philadelphia
that reads “Jewish lies Saudi money = USA wars.”
– Richard Spencer held a demonstration in
Washington, DC, at Lafayette Square outside the White House to protest the
bombing in Syria on April 8. One of the protesters accompanying Spencer held a
sign that read, “No more wars 4 Israel.”
The response to Kushner and the Trump Administration from white
supremacists comes at a time where some have expressed disappointment at Trump,
who they previously viewed as a champion of their cause. On April 7, Richard Spencercondemned
Trump’s military intervention in Syria in a video, saying: “I am deeply
disappointed in Donald Trump. I’m shocked, and I’m angry. And I am ready to
condemn Donald Trump.”
