Germany – Antisemitic Dog Whistling Depicts Soros as the Mastermind of the Black Lives Matter protests
This article is part of the Media Monitoring Highlights of June, a monthly overview of the most significant results of our monitoring of traditional and new media in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, and the United Kingdom.
Date of publication: 8 June 2020
Media outlet: ScienceFiles, a far-right fringe blog
Link: https://bit.ly/384js7r
Headline: “Who funds Black Lives Matter? - Soros, who else, but not only”
Description of the antisemitic content: Not only is this article deeply racist against Black people who are fighting for racial justice, but it also contains antisemitic dog-whistling. Part of a series that looks into the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, this article focuses specifically on who funds it. The author writes that BLM is financially supported by large donors, including George Soros' Open Society Foundations. The Hungarian born Jewish billionaire and philanthropist George Soros is portrayed here as influencing the antiracist protests from “behind the scenes”. His involvement is described as mysterious, as working from the shadows through his Open Society Foundation (OSF). With outrage, the article calls BLM a “communist” and “Marxist” organisation that aims to destroy the existing society, operating like a “crazy sect”, especially when they mobilise quickly to stage demonstrations across the USA.
Myth Debunked: Accusing Soros of being responsible for world events is one of the most common dog-whistles for antisemites. Without expressing openly antisemitic messages and without mentioning words such as Jews or Jewish, Soros works as a code, something that has gradually shifted from the far-right fringes to the mainstream. The portrayal of Jewish people as the masterminds, the string-pullers who want to undermine the established order, lurking behind the scenes of all events, is an age-old antisemitic trope. Because he is wealthy and Jewish, Soros has been the protagonist of countless conspiracy theories that all entail him supposedly trying to take control of the world and profiting from it. The article includes little information about Soros, and yet his name features in the headline. In this respect, it knowingly exploits Soros’ name, and the conspiracy narratives with which it is associated, framing the entire story through an antisemitic lens. As for the BLM demonstrations, this blog is not the only one spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories alleging that George Soros is “funding chaos” by paying protesters to take to the street. High-profile figures in right-wing circles, from the former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to several commentators and US actors, have been slandering Soros on Twitter and television as a danger for the country for fuelling the protests. Such claims have been categorically disproven in a recent report by the Poynter Institute.
More to read:
The Anti-Semitism Lurking Behind George Soros Conspiracy Theories
