‘Epidemic of hate’: White House convenes roundtable amid alarming rise of antisemitism

“Antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories are being normalized and mainstreamed through social media, celebrities, in politics and across society,” ADL VP George Selim.

Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo Nazi website the Daily Stormer, himself seemed surprised last week when new Twitter owner Elon Musk reinstated his Twitter account, suspended in 2013, along with reportedly those of some 60,000 other accounts that had been banned by Twitter in the past for violating the platform’s content moderation policies.

“Trying to find my friends,” Anglin wrote on Twitter on Dec. 1. “I lost them in 2013.”

By today, just six days later, when the White House convened a roundtable with the leaders of Jewish American organizations and White House officials on combating antisemitism, Anglin tweeted that he was aiming to reach 10,000 followers by the end of the day, and had pinned a tweet to the top of his timeline endorsing the rapper turned antisemitic politician Kanye West for president.

“There's an epidemic of hate facing our country,” Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, said at the White House event today that he hosted.

“Let me be clear: words matter,” Emhoff continued. “People are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud. They are literally screaming them."

“We are experiencing a perfect storm of rising antisemitism,” George Selim, Anti-Defamation League Senior VP, said in a statement after attending today’s roundtable.

“Antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories are being normalized and mainstreamed through social media, celebrities, in politics and across society,” Selim said.

That was indeed the case when Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, last week praised Hitler and the Nazis, and denied six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, in a sickening three hour interview with far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. A week before that, West and his Holocaust denying, white supremacist sidekick Nick Fuentes dined with former US President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Musk suspended West’s account last week after West tweeted an image of a swastika inside a Star of David to his over 30 million followers, although Musk did not indicate for how long the suspension would be in effect.

But the Daily Stormer founder Anglin observed last week essentially what many participants at the White House roundtable and counterterrorism experts said in recent days: Kanye and Trump among others were helping normalize antisemitism in the United States.

“Trump is already responding to stuff Ye is saying,” Anglin tweeted approvingly Dec. 2. “That means it’s working.”

Among the fifteen or so Jewish American groups and NGOs whose leaders were represented at the event, who don’t always see eye to eye on every issue, there was broad consensus that the United States is facing an unprecedented rise in antisemitism few had experienced before in the United States in their lifetimes, several attendees said.

“Jewish hate has reached a level previously unimaginable in the United States,” William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in a statement after attending the roundtable today.

“In light of recent events, it was critically important for all of us today to demonstrate the consensus that exists across the entire spectrum of the Jewish community on the dire need to combat antisemitism,” Daroff said. “We will remain united, for the explicit purpose of stopping violence and saving lives.”

“Nearly every person in the room said, ‘I’ve never seen something like this,’” Selim said. “A number of people in the room said, my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents were Holocaust survivors….And they never would have imagined they would see [antisemitism like this] in this day and age.”

“Everyone in the room…was unified under the umbrella that this is a historic and unprecedented time for antisemitic incidents,” said Selim, who previously served as a White House official working to counter domestic terrorism.

“We are incredibly gratified the Biden administration is committed to taking this threat seriously and is determined to use all of the tools at its disposal to counter these trends,” Selim said. “But our work has only just begun. ..We continue to urge lawmakers, policy leaders and civil society to speak out and condemn antisemitism wherever they see it.”

Jewish leaders praise Biden for condemning antisemitism, Holocaust denial

A few participants said it is very important that President Biden himself as well as other top Biden administration officials have used their White House platforms to vociferously condemn antisemitism and call out Holocaust denial, as Biden did in a tweet last week.

“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure,” Biden wrote in a tweet Dec. 2, the day after Kanye praised the Nazis and denied the Holocaust in the interview with Jones. “And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity.”

“While there is no single fix to this alarming trend, the president’s recent condemnation of Holocaust denial and distortion, and his unequivocal statement that ‘Silence is complicity,’ lay down an important marker,” Selim said.

“As long as I have this microphone, I'm going to speak out against hate, bigotry, violence, I am going to speak out against those who praise fascist murderers, …and idealize extremists,” Emhoff vowed at the event today. “I’m going to speak out against Holocaust deniers and call out those who won’t do it.”

Over 100 members of the House and Senate, led by Sen. Jacky Rosen (Democrat of Nevada) and Sen. James Lankford (Republican of Oklahoma), the Senate co-chairs of a bipartisan, bicameral Task Force on Combating Antisemitism, wrote to Biden in a letter Dec. 5, praising his administration’s efforts to date, and urging it to spearhead a “whole of government” approach to combat the rise of antisemitism.

“Combating a growing threat of this magnitude, particularly here at home, requires a strategic, whole-of-government approach,” the members wrote. “Because many individual agencies play a critical role in combating antisemitism, closer coordination is needed to share best practices, data, and intelligence; identify gaps in efforts;… and execute a unified national strategy.”

“The line between international and domestic antisemitism is increasingly blurred,” Aaron Keyak, Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, who attended today’s event, said in a phone interview with journalists tonight.

“Our office deals with antisemitism every day,” Keyak said. “That is the mandate of our office.  What we’ve seen though is that obviously antisemitism has continued to increase.”

Expert: Far Right White Supremacists See Kanye as Opportunity to Advance their Hate Agenda

Rita Katz, president of the Site Intelligence group, which tracks terrorism online, said she has been horrified to see the antisemitism stirred up by Kanye West and fellow travelers on the right.

“I have faced persecution for being a Jew throughout my life, but I never thought I’d see antisemitism reach the life-threatening levels it has today,” Katz told me by email.

“Kanye has made it more acceptable than ever to be an antisemite, …[and] some diehard followers will be willing to accept his ideas.”

“Then there’s the matter of how the far right is capitalizing on all of this,” Katz said. “Kanye has been the best gift the far right could have ever asked for….It might seem far-fetched for white nationalists and neo-Nazis to support West, but it is a calculated move…As a user on a far-right discussion forum wrote, ‘Even if you don't have complete trust in Ye, you don't let any opportunity to advance your agenda go to waste.’”

“So, while Kanye’s antisemitic rants might seem too deranged to persuade anyone—just as his presumed 2024 presidential campaign seems hopeless—he is still doing something very dangerous,” Katz said. “He has opened the door for closeted antisemites to begin taking the veil off…In a way, that is more troubling… because it can infect our discourse far more deeply.”

Anglin seemed to demonstrate much of what Katz was explaining. In many dozens of tweets he has posted since his account was reinstated a week ago, Anglin has praised the cleverness of, and often seemed to emulate, Kanye West’s model of promoting antisemitic images and ideas, while using language of supposed Christian “love.” Often with a tone of mock tolerance or irony, he seems to be demonstrating that he is abiding by Musk’s apparent admonition against tweeting Swastikas or outright calls to violence, while appealing to Musk’s vanity that he is a big defender of free speech. All while rebuilding his audience and online network of followers to expand his influence.

“Saying you love Hitler is not even a big deal,” Anglin tweeted Dec. 2. “No one cares about that.”

“Ye is the second presidential candidate I’ve endorsed, and the first one won,” Anglin boasted in another tweet Dec. 2.

“The rhetoric Kanye espouses is a one-way road to bloodshed, regardless of how much anyone tries to soften it,” the Site Group’s Katz warned. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see future antisemitic attacks inspired in some part by him.”

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