fake news on conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories about Jews and others are frequently global in nature, featuring worldwide plots. The same can be said for conspiracies tying Jews and Israel to the coronavirus. As such, the very same content found online, on state or satellite TV in the Arab world, also appears in the West, primarily through first-generation immigrants with ties to the Middle East. For example, Professor As’ad Abukhalil, a Lebanese-American at California State University (Stanislaus), tweeted “the Jewish State will have different medical procedures for Jews and non-Jews” and those “non-Jews will be put in mass prisons” as part of Israel’s coronavirus response. [3]
Antisemitism presents itself in old and new guises. The authoritative IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism offers traditional examples of conspiracy theories and hatred rooted in religious ideology alongside more recent examples related to Israel and the Middle East conflict. All can be found in the current situation, and they are often woven together. Thus, some anti semitic messages claim Jews, Zionists, or the State of Israel itself have created COVID-19 with the sinister purpose of then being able to profit from developing an antidote. In others, Israel is falsely portrayed as caring for its own population while preventing any help for Palestinians. A third set of examples claims that Jews themselves are infected and spreading the deadly virus via their own communities, much as they were accused of spreading the plague in medieval times. These charges may be contradictory, but that matters little to the anti semites who promote them.