Holding the Strings in Our Hands

Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy Jr. Make Use of Antisemitic Tropes in their Conspiracies

Hank Kalet Sep 13 ∙ Preview

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This poster, from German-occupied Serbia circa 1941, “depicts a smirking Jewish puppeteer operating marionettes resembling Stalin and Churchill.” It was part of the Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition in Belgrade from Oct. 22, 1941, to Jan. 19, 1942, which “focused on the alleged Jewish-Communist-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination with the intent to increase hatred against outsider groups that opposed Nazi Germany.” Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
Elon Musk does not like the Anti-Defamation League. That, in and of itself, is no big deal. I’m not crazy about the ADL, either, for a number of reasons, chief among them its accusation that criticizing Israel is the same as criticizing Jews.

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But there is something ugly about Musk’s distaste for the organization. It appears deeper than a fair and reasoned consideration of the ADL’s posture on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement or Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. For Musk, it appears both personal and something more, a melding of personal anger over the ADL’s criticism of his social media platform X with the historical scapegoating of Jews and the argument that Jews control things from behind the scenes.

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I should define what I mean by antisemitism, so it is clear what it is and is no. Antisemitism is more than hatred of Jews. It is the attribution of specific qualities and powers to the Jewish people, a conspiratorial take on who we are and what we believe. Historically, it has included the “blood libel”¹ — the rumor that Jews were kidnapping Christian children, killing them, and using their blood in matzoh — and “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”² — an long-debunked antisemitic tract that started circulating in Russia in the late 19th Century and continues to be circulated among White Supremacist groups.

Criticism of Israel or Jewish organizations³, in and of itself, is not antisemitic. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been growing more and more authoritarian, and his government’s treatment of its Palestinian citizens and those living in areas under occupation is not dissimilar from the South African apartheid regime.⁴

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