"Top officials in North Carolina and at the Federal Emergency Management Agency responding to Helene are being subjected to a flurry of antisemitic attacks, causing some of them to fear for their safety as they prepare for another hurricane to strike Florida.
The attacks, which include wild claims that Jewish officials are conspiring to orchestrate the disasters, sabotage the recovery or even seize victims’ property, are being fomented largely on Elon Musk’s X. Antisemitic tropes have commingled on the site with false rumors and conspiracy theories amid the chaos of the recovery effort, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD).
The online vitriol is compounding the challenges facing emergency management officials dealing with the aftermath of Helene and readying a response to Milton, a Category 5 hurricane barreling toward Florida. The volume and virulence of the X posts have dismayed experts who warn that they risk undermining lifesaving response measures.
“We’re seeing an alarming trend of antisemitism being included now in false narratives around pretty much any breaking news event,” said Isabelle Frances-Wright, ISD’s director of technology and society. “This portends a grim outlook for the information ecosystem, both on X itself but also on other platforms where these narratives trickle into and evolve.”
The report focused on 33 recent viral X posts that spread misinformation about Helene, which made landfall in Florida as a major hurricane last month and caused at least 231 deaths and widespread devastation in six states.
The posts collectively attracted 159 million views, even though their claims were thoroughly debunked by local residents, FEMA, the White House and other government officials. Ten of the posts contained antisemitic sentiments and collectively drew 17.1 million views.
In comparison, FEMA, which leads the federal response to Helene, drew just short of 2.6 million views for its 10 most popular posts on Saturday and Sunday.
The report noted that antisemitic sentiments were largely directed at three individual officials: FEMA director of public affairs Jaclyn Rothenberg, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Asheville, N.C., Mayor Esther Manheimer. Many came from accounts that have also trafficked in other forms of misinformation on X, including false claims about Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, the war in Ukraine, and the 2020 presidential election…
When Musk reinstated the accounts of “so many known extremists and white supremacists,” Eisenstat said, “he signaled to everyone on this platform that engaging in the worst kind of antisemitism and conspiracy theories and targeting people was fair game.”
Andy Carvin, managing editor of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Lab, said the inability or unwillingness of online platforms such as X to disincentivize the spread of such rhetoric has created a “perfect storm of weather-related disinformation and conspiracy theories intertwining with anti-government paranoia and antisemitic rhetoric.”
“What’s particularly worrying is the potential for online threats to escalate into real-world political violence,” Carvin added. “Federal, state and local emergency management officials have a difficult enough job to do responding to natural disasters, and now some of them are having to deal with doing that very job with a potential target on their backs.”
The Washington Post
Officials face antisemitic attacks over Hurricane Helene response
October 8, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
***
One Christmas night my Aunt Angelina, Aunt Martha, Uncle Lou & Uncle Fred sat at my grandmom’s kitchen table.
I said to Uncle Fred and Uncle Lou.
“Thanks for what you did.”
Uncle Fred,
“What do you mean?”
“Thanks for what you did in the war. If you didn’t do it we might all be speaking German now.
My Uncle Fred had to leave the table.
My Uncle Fred was a combat engineer who landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He kept his boots on for three months until they got to Paris. He was constantly under fire for three months.
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| My Uncle Fred is 2nd from right with the tilted hat. |
I’m saddened and angered by the Republican Party revival of Nazism.
As a toddler at Christmastime in my grandmom Pitcherella’s house, my favorite thing next to la frit (frittelle) was Uncle Tony’s Jewish business partner Julius Gordon making me laugh.
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| Julius Gordon |
Raised Catholic, my Grandmom Cavallucci was the organist and choir directer at the Holy Rosary a block from our home. She made sure I was at church on Sundays.
My next-door neighbors for the first 17 years of my life were Dr. Lewis Stokes and his wife Ms. Barbara Stokes. Dr. Stokes was a pioneering Black physician who was active in the NAACP.
My parents called on Dr. Stokes when I had medical emergencies at night. I went to his office on Chestnut Street in Coatesville. I don't know what he put in those big syringes. I got better quickly when I saw him.
Cutting through my Black neighbors yards on my way to school where I had Black and White friends it was hard to be racist.
MORE AT:
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Thursday, October 15, 2009
ADL Welcomes Christian Leader's Apology For Insensitive Remarks On Healthcare Debate
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ChJew_31/5623_31.htmC
When I read above article from the Anti Defamation League about an apology to the ADL I couldn’t help thinking of Ricky Saha publicly refusing to apologize for calling Bill Chertok a Nazi. Dick Saha did apologize for calling Bill a Nazi in a letter to the ADL.
From the Daily Local News:
“Rick Saha’s name was not included on the apology letter that his father issued to council members and City Manager Paul G. Janssen Jr.
‘I don’t think I was out of control. That’s the way I felt,’ Rick Saha said. ‘If they (the ADL) don’t like it, I’m sorry to them. As far as council members, they’ve treated us rotten for the last five years. I’ve never gotten a ‘sorry’ for anything that happened."
Sahas' remark upsets group
Gina Zotti , Staff Writer 03/12/2004
http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2004/03/12/frontpage/11111994.txt
I can still “see” Dick and Ricky in my mind calling Bill Chertok a Nazi. I can still see the look on Bill’s face.
There were also Miss Patsy Ray’s remarks:
From JWeekly
“In Coatesville, Pa., city Councilman William Chertok was accused by a colleague of voting against an increase in the city's Christmas parade budget because he was Jewish.
‘I understand, Mr. Chertok, that Jews don't celebrate Christmas,’ councilwoman-elect Patsy Ray said in a meeting in November. Her comments prompted a rebuke from the council and the local media.
Chertok said he voted against the increase for budgetary reasons.”
Friday, December 23, 2005
Does the clamor for Christmas drown out Chanukah?
by Matthew e. Berger, jta
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/28036/does-the-clamor-for-christmas-drown-out-chanukah/
What is not mentioned in any article are the cheers that went up in the room from the “citizens” attending the meetings.
Posted by James Pitcherella at 8:05 PM
***
Monday, November 20, 2023
“The blowback over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X gathered steam on Friday, as several major advertisers on his social media platform cut off their spending after his comments.
Disney said it was pausing spending on X, as did Lionsgate, the entertainment and film distribution company, and Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS. Apple, which spends tens of millions of dollars a year on X, also suspended advertising on the platform, a person with knowledge of the situation said. They followed IBM, which cut its spending with X on Thursday.
Mr. Musk, who bought Twitter last year and renamed it X, has been under scrutiny for months for allowing and even stoking antisemitic abuse on the site. That snowballed on Wednesday when the tech billionaire agreed with a post on X that accused Jewish people who are facing antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war of pushing the “exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them” and supporting the immigration of “hordes of minorities.”
“You have said the actual truth,” Mr. Musk replied.
Jewish groups have compared the statement in the original post to a belief known as replacement theory, a conspiracy theory that posits that nonwhite immigrants, organized by Jews, intend to replace the white race. That idea fueled Robert Bowers, who raged against Jewish people online before killing 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
On Friday, the White House condemned Mr. Musk, 52, for boosting the anti-Jewish conspiracy theory. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that it was “unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
MORE AT:
Advertisers Flee X as Outcry Over Musk’s Endorsement of Antisemitic Post Grows
Disney, Apple, Paramount and Lionsgate halted marketing on X, formerly Twitter, as Elon Musk faced a furor over antisemitic abuse on his social media platform.
By Ryan Mac, Brooks Barnes and Tiffany Hsu
Nov. 17, 2023
***
“On Saturday, 18-year-old Payton Gendron allegedly drove more than 200 miles to a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo and, dressed in tactical gear, opened fire at Tops Friendly Market. He shot 13 people and 10 died. Gendron, who has been charged with murder in connection with the shooting, reportedly left behind a 180-page manifesto that “repeatedly cited” the great replacement theory.
The role of Tucker Carlson in mainstreaming the great replacement theory is well-documented. But the mass shooting in Buffalo raises serious questions about many prominent Republican officials and rightwing advocates who have adopted the great replacement theory in recent years, even as the racist conspiracy was cited as motivation by previous mass shooters in Pittsburgh and El Paso.
And there are many:
Senator Ron Johnson
Senate candidate JD Vance
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik
Congressman Scott Perry
Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham
Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro
Daily Wire host Matt Walsh
Trump adviser Stephen Miller
Donald Trump
Trump won the presidency fearmongering about immigrants. In a July 2017 speech in Poland, Trump deployed the language of the great replacement theory. He described immigration as an issue of “survival” for “the west”. Migrants were part of a plot to “subvert and destroy” our “civilization”.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the west has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
The speech was reportedly written by Miller.
FROM:
Republicans have invoked the ‘great replacement’ theory over and over
Judd Legum
Last modified on Tue 17 May 2022 10.21 EDT
Posted by James Pitcherella at 8:06 AM
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