The use of “free speech” as a shield for virulent anti-Semitism
Here’s an interesting article from Tablet entitled “The Free Speech of Fools”. Some excerpts [emphasis mine]:
Led by [Tucker] Carlson, the network [of anti-Israel pundits supposedly on the right] systematically undermined the organizing principle of the anticensorship movement, which was aggressive, open inquiry skeptical of ideological dogma and institutional authority. In its place, members of the Carlson clique obey two imperatives: to shield other members from legitimate criticism and to uphold anti-Jewish ideology as the ultimate principle of free speech.
I have noticed this again and again and again. If you’ve been ignoring Carlson, Owens, and the rest of the crew – an understandable thing to do, actually – you may have missed it. But there are many of them, and part of their m.o. is to purposely conflate criticism of them with attempts to “cancel” them or silence them. A typical comment of theirs is, “we’re not allowed to criticize Israel” or “we’re not allowed to ask questions about Israel” when in fact they are completely allowed to do so and in fact do so incessantly. But they accuse their critics of stifling their speech, when all that’s happening is that they are being criticized for promulgating destructive lies, much of them classic anti-Semitic ones such as the blood libel. And in accusing their critics that way, people such as Carlson are slyly appealing to people on the right who are justifiably angry at the rise and previous dominance of cancel culture from the left in recent years.
More from the article:
The structural reshaping of the news ecosystem into “independent” voices and outlets, which once held so much promise to cut through entrenched interests and provide audiences with an unvarnished view of the world around them,, instead ended up as a propaganda industry promoting the work of fantasists and open antisemites.
That’s not the only propaganda it fosters, of course. But it’s a hatred with a long and dangerous history, and the internet is ideal for spreading it.
Actually, the prevalence of Jew-hatred was one of the very first things I ever noticed online when I first started using a computer in the mid 1990s – before there was even Google, using the older search engines. I immediately noticed that, whenever a search was related to Israel or Jews, it opened up and brought forth a huge stinking cesspool of blatant antisemitism. The first few pages of results were full of it. After a while, the people running the search engines fixed the algorithms so the Jew-hate was relegated to the second or third page of results, but over time much of it crept back up in rankings although often in a less blatant form. The loosening of censorship on X and other platforms, which I support, unfortunately opened the door to its return in copious amounts.
Online Jew-hatred is almost like online porn – perennially popular.
NOTE: I’m not sure where to put this, so I’ll put it here:
“From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two – the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society.” Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Among the many millions of like minded, Carlson, Owens, Kent & Fuentes are currently the most prominent members of the “indecent race of men”. It is not possible to look objectively at the Israeli -Islamic conflict and conclude that the Israelis are the bad guys. Only hate filled antisemitism suffices as an explanation.
My husband has a Gab account, on which he looks at dog videos and memes, and talks on a few sports threads. But he says he has to wade through tons of really disgusting hate posts on the main page to get to his interest groups. Anti-Jew hate, anti-black hate, large varieties of other hatreds and perversions. Sad to know there are so many sick people out there.
Kate:
Sick people, yes. Also bots, though.
Probably bots. Happily, my husband just ignores the ugliness and moves through to the topics he wants, where there are a lot fewer bots or ugly people.
I don’t understand the prejudice against Jews. Yes, there was a time when they controlled most of the financial world, and it’s easy to dislike people you owe money to – but that’s a past time. These days… I just don’t understand.
Sue Klausner:
They controlled European lending, and only because Christians wouldn’t do it.
I’m not familiar with how substack works. But this piece by Alana Goodman on Politico’s column on best political cartoons of the week features this topical doozy employing Jew hate, courtesy of Alana Goodman Substack on Friday.
HEADLINE “Politico Publishes Cartoon Depicting Trump, Republicans Wearing Blood-Covered Jewish Prayer Shawls, Yarmulkes Amid Bags of Money”
Politico published a cartoon on Friday featuring anti-Semitic imagery in an attempt to criticize the war in Iran. The image depicts President Donald Trump, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Republican members of Congress wearing blood-covered Jewish prayer shawls and yarmulkes.
The cartoon, drawn by former New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas, depicts the lawmakers aboard a rowboat labeled “Ship of Neocons”—a play on the Hieronymus Bosch painting Ship of Fools—that is about to plummet over a waterfall. A bag of blood-smeared money crowns the mast, and the word “Amalek,” a reference to a historical enemy of the Jewish people from the Hebrew Bible, appears in the background.
Netanyahu, depicted with an exaggerated nose, is also shown wearing a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl and eating from a table covered in blood, while Trump, also in a Jewish prayer shawl, is drawn underneath the word “Amalek.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who is not Jewish, is depicted wearing a yarmulke and a Jewish prayer shawl and holding a bottle of blood. Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), also drawn in a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl, have supported the Iran war and are longtime supporters of Israel.
The cartoon plays on classic anti-Semitic tropes about Jews covertly controlling events, in this case the decision to launch the war in Iran, and using financial exploitation to do so. The exaggeration of Netanyahu’s nose in a grotesque, caricatured style plays on age-old efforts to dehumanize Jews.
The drawing was published as part of Politico‘s “Cartoon Carousel,” which Politico describes as a round-up of the “best” political cartoons of the week.
A spokeswoman for Politico did not respond to a request for comment…. https://substack.com/browse/recommendations/post/192363218
As neo effectively declares, it’s ugly out there and getting uglier.
YouTube comments on anything political, get oft the rails quickly into Anti-Jewish rhetoric. Not that US comments can’t, but with a world wide audience it’s worse.
I don’t understand the prejudice against Jews.
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I suspect if you carefully question people, you find a variable mix of reasons.
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The situation during the inter-war period in Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Roumania was noticeably different than other places.
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Israel as a country and American Jews as a population tend to be abnormally accomplished without a larger matrix doing them any favors. That infuriates some people.
Robert Stacy McCain knocks it out of the park:
https://theothermccain.com/2026/03/28/an-unjustified-arrogance/#disqus_thread
Thomas Sowell has suggested that the Jews have been the “minority middleman” in a number of societies. The same is true of Indians in Africa, Chinese in SEA, Cubans in the Caribbean. Some of the same difficulties are encountered; “clannish, money grubbers, snobs, etc” And, sometimes, violence.
But Jews have about two thousand years’ of hate-generated tactics and accusations to be used against them. It’s different when there’s such a supply to draw from, I suspect.
That being said, why does it light up like kerosene when introduced onto a campus? Is there some need to hate, awaiting only a suggested target? Wny?
Check out Roddie Edmonds, Righteous Among The Nations. I expect he thought he held that honor in trust for a thousand of his closest friends. Guaranteeing you that college degrees–and high school diplomas–were not common among WW II Infantry.
Imagine that happening on a college campus today. Why?
TJ: Yes, I saw the shocking Politico cartoons too. It struck me that they’ve broken a new boundary: Der Sturmer-level propaganda in what is considered a respectable publication.
Looks like a good reason for removing Politico as a news source.
I’m not removing Politico as a news source because it has never been one, only left wing propaganda.
Neo:
part of their m.o. is to purposely conflate criticism of them with attempts to “cancel” them or silence them.
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which is the main tactic of woke identity politics, and traces back to Marxist DARVO propaganda.
Ben David:
That’s one of the reasons some people call them the “woke right.”
The Tablet article is behind a paywall. Here is an archived copy:
https://archive.ph/zCtWi