RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-the-pandemic-anti-semitism-flares-up-11586991224

The world’s newest disease has unleashed another wave of the world’s oldest hate. Difficult as it might be for the uninstructed mind to make a connection between a global pandemic originating in China and the Elders of Zion, the world’s anti-Semites have risen to the challenge.

Coşkun Başbuğ, a retired colonel who appears frequently on Turkish state television, shared his views about the coronavirus in an appearance on the A Haber television network. Apparently, the Jews who engineered this virus were following up on their earlier work with avian flu. The goal was the usual: global domination. Also in Turkey, Fatih Erbakan, head of a small Islamist party in Turkey and son of a former prime minister, declaimed that “this virus serves Zionism’s goals to decrease the number of people in the world and prevent it from increasing. Important investigations confirm this fact.”

It is not always clear how the plot is supposed to unfold. Some think reducing the world population ranks high on the “Jewish” agenda; others focus on the opportunities for insider trading that a shock like the coronavirus develops. A Jewish member of the Brazilian delegation that accompanied President Jair Bolsonaro to visit President Trump later tested positive for Covid-19. For some conspiracy theorists, this was enough to demonstrate a Jewish plot against Messrs. Bolsonaro and Trump.

Rasem Abidat, a columnist for the East Jerusalem-based Al-Quds newspaper, has a slightly contrasting view. Mr. Abidat, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sees the virus as a joint U.S.-Israel strategy to attack China and Iran. “Faced with these dangers—an American loss of global military and economic hegemony and a threat to Israel’s existence,” he gravely opined, “Israel and the U.S. had no choice . . . but to resort to biological weapons, for the economic solutions and military options were unable to halt China’s advance and its economic takeover of the world.”

Asad Al-Zouni, a Jordanian journalist of Palestinian origin, said: “This virus is surely an outcome of the Jews’ concealed hatred for the entire world, and its spread in the U.S. is meant to demonstrate this and to serve as a weapon for the contractor Trump in the upcoming election, so as to ensure his re-election.”

A posting on the widely read far-left Spanish website Kaos en la Red claimed that “the coronavirus is an instrument of the Third World War that has unleashed Yankee Zionist imperialism. The Anglo-Saxon capitalist and Zionist elite that is the enemy of all Humanity has taken a further step in its criminal and genocidal offensive.” A Swiss Holocaust denier accused George Soros of spreading the virus, claiming that Mr. Soros operates a biological laboratory that works with viruses in Wuhan.

It will come as no surprise that Iran takes the gold medal in Jew-baiting. Press TV, the state-aligned broadcaster, claimed that “Zionist elements” had developed a deadlier-than-usual strain of coronavirus to be used against Iran. Press TV’s Spanish-language arm, HispanTV, added another element: According to an “international analyst” interviewed on the network, the Saudis joined with Israel to launch this dastardly attack.

At least one Iranian tried to pull back from the shameless Jew-baiting. Kianush Jahanpur, spokesman for the Iranian Health Ministry, thought that one other country might be involved. “It seems statistics from China [were] a bitter joke, because many in the world thought this is just like influenza, with fewer deaths. This [impression was] based on reports from China and now it seems China made a bitter joke with the rest of the world,” he said during a videoconference in early April.

This heretical suggestion drew a swift rebuke from Chinese diplomats in both Iran and Beijing, and Iranian hard-liners attacked Mr. Jahanpur as a spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu.

Americans on the political fringes have joined in. Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist and serial loser in congressional races, claimed on social media in January that Israel invented the virus as a biological weapon. The Nation of Islam Research Group believes the Israelis developed the virus for use in political assassinations.

That so many people in so many places instinctively blamed the Jews for the pandemic underscores how deeply ingrained the irrational force of anti-Semitism remains. Thankfully, groups like the Anti-Defamation League are keeping score. At a time when Jews around the world are celebrating their deliverance from captivity in Egypt, this wave of hate should remind us all how important it is that the Jewish people have a state, and that the Jewish state remains strong enough to defend itself from the enemies near and far who yearn for its destruction.