Financial Crisis Sparks Wave of Internet Anti-Semitism
Alleging Jewish or Israeli Control of the Government
Posted: October 2, 2008
Updated: October 24, 2008
Some posts on Yahoo! Finance group have tied the country's financial problems to alleged Jewish or Israeli control of the U.S. government. A few of the posts have also blamed Israel or the Zionists for the economic crisis. Anti-Semitic comments about the financial crisis have also appeared on online discussion groups, Web sites and blogs.
"Zionists" dictating American policy caused the crisis
James Petras, a retired professor of sociology and the author of numerous books and articles that advance an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic narrative blamed the current economic crisis on the power of the "Zionists" to control the U.S. government and world events. He focused on the activities of what he called the "Zionist Power Configuration" or "ZPC." Petras wrote:
It was the massive infusion of financial contributions that allowed the ZPC to vastly expand the number of full-time functionaries, influence peddlers and electoral contributors that magnified their power – especially in promoting US Middle East wars, lopsided free trade agreements (in favor of Israel) and unquestioned backing of Israeli aggression against Lebanon, Syria and Palestine...No economic recovery is possible now or in the foreseeable future as long as the US Congress and executives provide trillion dollar bailouts to Wall Street's insolvent speculators, bankroll 700 billion dollar budgets of ever expanding war spending and while Zionist power brokers dictate US Mideast policies.
In an online group devoted to discussing Israel and which often features anti-Semitic material, "Peace Power" posted sections of an October 2008 article, blaming "Zionist Robber Barons" for the financial crisis. The article written by Khalid Amayreh, a Palestinian journalist based in the West Bank city of Hebron, stated:
Yesterday, America had to allocate 700 billion dollars to bail out another ramshackIe American financial institution. I am afraid there will be more bad news in this regard if America doesn't reclaim its liberty from the Zionist Rober [sic] Barons who have come to tightly control the American financial establishment...It is time ordinary Americans wake up from their slumber to reclaim their country from rapacious Zionism. Because their very future is at stake.
Claims that Israel will benefit from the crisis
In September 2008, on the Yahoo! Finance message board, "Anh2sike" wrote, "With many big Jewish brokerages going down, I'm sure Israel will lose some welfare money coming from America…But I'll bet Israel is not worry [sic] too much though, because the US govt is always there to issue blank checks to Israel. Americans need to wake up and take control of their lives again."
That same month, a YouTube video "We the People" asserted "We have a bunch of foreign citizens (Israeli's) [sic] that have infiltrated what was once 'our' government at the highest levels…. The 'U.S. Government' is ripping us off for trillions of dollars and giving it to their fellow Jews."
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