Elon Musk caused a stir again with a tweet. He once again portrays Soros in the role of the destroyer of culture and civilization and cultural Bolshevik, whereby the borderlines of criticism between Judaism and liberalism are often blurred or considered to be synonyms, whereby the Jerusalem Post as well as Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen especially here sense anti-Semitism. The Jerusalem Post seems to embody the voice of liberal Judaism, which is not on the upswing either, if you look at Netanyahu and his far-right coalition, including their own mass protests, or Jareed Kushner as Trump’s son-in-law. Anyway, Elon Musk has now compared Soros to the mutant villain and Holocaust survivor Magneto, who is nemesis and arc enemy of Professor Xavier X and his X-Men in the comic books of the Marvel Universe and now also its Blockbusters.

Maybe Musk could have chosen Superman and Lex Luthor or Batman and the Joker, but maybe he was more of a Stan Lee Marvel comics fan when he was younger, especially since Musk considers himself a kind of Nietzesian „Übermesch“, „Herrenmensch“, superman, visionary and superhero of Silicon Valley and humanity who now also wants to colonize Mars.

However, this is worth a big article in the Jerusalem Post, since it smells anti-Semitism in Musk’s attack on Soros, as well as since Musk took over Twitter, right-wing, anti-Semitic hate comments are said to have doubled and increased, especially since Facebook and Twitter have now also unblocked Trump, but the later founded his own social media channel and now also appears on the hated CNN:

“Elon Musk: George Soros hates humanity, like a Jewish comic book villain

The attacks on Soros come as Twitter has faced criticism over its lax hate speech policies in the months since Musk bought the platform last year.

WASHINGTON — Elon Musk tweeted that George Soros “hates humanity,” and wrote that the billionaire and progressive megadonor “reminds me of Magneto,” a comic book villain who features in Marvel’s X-Men series.

The attacks on Soros come as Twitter has faced criticism over its lax hate speech policies in the months since Musk, one of the world’s richest people, bought the platform last year. Soros, the billionaire and progressive megadonor, is at the center of multiple antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Like Soros, the character of Magneto is a Holocaust survivor. Brian Krassenstein, a liberal Jewish journalist, noted that parallel in a reply to Musk’s tweet, writing, “Magneto’s experiences during the Holocaust as a survivor shaped his perspective as well as his depth and empathy,” and that Soros “gets attacked nonstop for his good intentions which some Americans think are bad merely because they disagree with [his] political affiliations.”

Musk responded, “You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”

While Musk has railed against progressive policies, what prompted his attack on Soros isn’t clear. On the same day as the tweets, however, Soros’ family investment office cashed out its investment in Tesla, Musk’s electric car company.

Soros long-time target of antisemitic conspiracy theories

Soros, 92, has long been a target of conservatives for backing progressive causes and politicians in the United States and worldwide. In the last decade or so, some of the attacks have echoed antisemitic conspiracy theories, depicting Soros as satanic, accusing him of seeking world control and falsely accusing him of helping perpetrate the Holocaust rather than surviving it as a child.

These conspiracy theories accelerated after the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, who made Soros a focus of his final campaign ad that year and who has relentlessly portrayed Soros as a villain as he runs for the 2024 election.

Musk, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, has reinstated the Twitter accounts of right wing extremists who had previously been banned, a move that alarmed Jewish anti-bigotry groups. He suspended some of the extremists again after they returned to posting hateful tweets. Extremists have lauded him and he has returned the affection, encouraging some of their theories. In December, Musk disbanded an advisory group focused on “Trust and Safety” on Twitter, and in March, a study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank found that antisemitism more than doubled on the platform in the months since Musk took it over.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-743288

At least for Israel’s foreign minister, a clear case that smells of anti-Semitism, even though Soros also supports NGOs against Israel’s right-wing government.

“Israeli Foreign Ministry blasts Musk over Twitter antisemitism after Soros tweet

“Freedom of Speech, Not Freedom of Reach.” Twitter Owner Elon Musk

(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Musk’s tweet “smelled of antisemitism…[and] immediately brought a flood of antisemitic conspiracy theories,” the Foreign Ministry said.

Twitter does not act against antisemitism, the Foreign Ministry said on Twitter on Tuesday.

The remarks came after Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted about another controversial billionaire, George Soros, saying he reminds him of Magneto, the villain from X-Men who, like Soros, survived the Holocaust.

Soros “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization,” Musk said. “Soros hates humanity.”

Soros reminds me of Magneto

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2023

“The Jews” then became a trending topic on Twitter.

Musk’s tweet “smelled of antisemitism…[and] immediately brought a flood of antisemitic conspiracy theories,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“Unfortunately, Twitter does nothing to address this problem,” Foreign Ministry Director of the Digital Diplomacy David Saranga tweeted.

ADL response to antisemitism on Twitter

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted that “Soros often is held up by the far-right, using antisemitic tropes, as the source of the world’s problems.

Elon Musk, regardless of his intent, feeds this segment – comparing him to a Jewish supervillain, claiming Soros ‘hates humanity’ – is not just distressing, it’s dangerous: it will embolden extremists who already contrive anti-Jewish conspiracies and have tried to attack Soros and Jewish communities as a result.”

Since buying Twitter last year and sharply reducing its staff, Musk has faced criticism for not monitoring and taking action against hate on the social media site.

The ADL published a report last week on Twitter six months after Musk purchased it, pointing to the reinstatement of the accounts of hate groups, neo-Nazis and others, as well as a looser policy in responding to hate speech as opposed to overt threats of violence.

Soros is one of the leading donors to the Democratic Party, often contributing to candidates on the party’s Left flank. In recent years, he has focused on criminal justice reform, supporting progressive district attorneys who are more hesitant to prosecute criminals for certain crimes and try to minimize prison sentences.

In Israel, Soros’s Open Society Foundation donated to organizations accusing Israel of human rights violations and war crimes, such as Breaking the Silence and Adalah. In a 2016 leak of OSF emails, staffers said they sought to weaken ties between Israel and the EU and sow doubt about Israeli democracy. 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-743283

Elon Musk, who has often enough documented his hatred of what he sees as liberal, woken, socialist-communist, anti-corporate Democrats and the Biden government, and who has clearly expressed his support for the Republicans, but not for Trump, has now portrayed Soros as the ultimate evil , who has no good intentions, but wants to destroy world humanity and its civilization through his liberalism, and Soros is also a keen donor to the Democratic Party, which in Musk´s world view stands for the end of civilization. Almost sounds a bit like Hitler’s division of peoples and races into culture creators (Aryans), culture preservers/culture copiers (Japanese), culture destroyers (Jews, Slavs), although he does not explicitly ethnicize his criticism of the Democrats, Soros and de Liberalism.

A professor who was once involved with the Open Society Foundation describes his experience as follows:

“I admit that I am also cautious when I hear about Soros-funded organizations, because their political agenda is actually mostly very clear. And I recently had a meeting with people who were funded by an organization like that. They told me that the problem is that there are no real decision-making bodies that discuss everything and come to a decision afterwards, but that Soros himself decides, even today. And if he decides that a project shouldn’t get any more money, then it doesn’t get any either. So I don’t think that skepticism about Soros always has to have something to do with anti-Semitism.”

Not always, but often. And sometimes there is a two-track mix approach. But he would also be criticized if he weren’t a Jew, since he’s heavily involved internationally. And of course neither his speech „Down with the D-Mark“ nor the Asian crisis, with which he made his money back then, has been forgotten. That’s why he’s so unpopular in Thailand and ASEAN in general. It’s not because he’s Jewish, it’s because he’s made so much money ruining other people by simply shorting the options market. In Russia, Soros had also acted as one of those much-criticized oligarchs. His speculation against the British pound was also famous at the time. Certainly not a boy scout. Be it financial with investments or politically. In Russia, too, the English-language Wikipedia article on Berezovsky is very informative, since, in contrast to the German version, it depicts the various power groups and Soros in quite detail. But Musk does not list these examples at all, because he is quite similar to Soros as a predatory capitalist and probably also sees him as a financial genius or genius on an equal footing. Perhaps Musk also sees himself as creative, innovative, productive capital and Soros as rapacious, speculative, parasitic capital.

But Soros is also an object of hate mainly because he is a Popper student and fan. and Soros as Popper is the most prominent representative of liberalism. It’s not for nothing that his foundation is called the Open Society Foundation. And Orban was once a Soros scholarship holder. Hence “illiberal democracy”. No wonder that Putin now also wants settlements for “conservative Americans” in Russia as the new promised land of authoritarian, “value-conservative” nationalist Internationale, and Orban-Hungary is now seen by the Trumpists and the CPAC as the new Mecca and Jerusalem of illiberal or post-liberal „democracy“ and places od worsgip where to found a liberalism free and Soros free Unwokestan.

Chuck Norris and the No Woke Zone

The right-wing CPAC network meeting took place in Hungary for the second time

Right-wing extremists and conservatives network against „woke elites“ at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Last week the meeting took place for the second time in Budapest. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is trying to portray himself as the leader of an international right.

Anyone who descends the stairs here enters the »No Woke Zone«. This is what a lettering above the entrance to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary promises, as photos show. On May 4th and 5th, the right-wing networking meeting, which is actually of US origin, took place in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Speakers included Republicans loyal to Trump, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Herbert Kickl, the new leader of France’s Rassemblement national, Jordan Bardella, Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the sons of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and many more . Video greetings came from recently fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson, far-right media strategist Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump himself, who pledged his supporters to „fight the barbarians.“ Since 1974, the right-wing Republican conference has been hosted annually by the American Conservative Union (ACU). Recently, Trump supporters have dominated the CPAC. His main Republican rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, even stayed away from her last time in Maryland in March. „Come back, Mr. President! Make America great again and bring us peace!« Viktor Orbán at the CPAC conference in Budapest The conference has also been taking place outside the USA for a number of years – in Brazil, Japan and now for the second time in Hungary. Right-wingers and conservatives who feel bullied and attacked by „woken elites“ perceive Viktor Orbán’s „illiberal democracy“ as a kind of safe space. „For me, a trip to Hungary is a trip to normality,“ said Hans-Georg Maassen (CDU) to the Budapest newspaper last November. For the former President of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hungary is a place »where I, as a white German man, am not discriminated against and defamed«.

Hungary is also a place of longing for US right-wingers. Tucker Carlson broadcast for Fox News from Budapest for a week in 2021 and told his compatriots from there that one had to look to Hungary “if Western civilization and democracy and family were important to you” (“Authoritarian Desires”, Jungle World 50/2021 ). At this year’s CPAC in Budapest, the country was celebrated as „no country for woke men“. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán likes to present himself as a pioneer of a global right. »Hungary has become an incubator for conservative politics. We have stopped migration at our borders, put an end to gender propaganda in schools and work tirelessly for peace. This is the cure for the progressive liberal virus,” he wrote on Twitter. He gave the opening speech at the Budapest CPAC and demanded: „No migration, no gender, no war.“ He also greeted Donald Trump: „I’m sure if Trump were still president, there would be no war in Ukraine and Europe . Come back Mr President! Make America great again and bring us peace!“

Political scientist Markus Linden wrote on Zeit Online: „Trump’s election defeat has strengthened Orbán’s position in the field.“ He points out that Orbán also gave the opening speech at the CPAC, which took place in Texas in August 2022. There he summed up the orientation of the right-wing international as follows: „We need more Chuck Norris and fewer drag queens.“ According to Linden, Orbán is pursuing right-wing metapolitics, “that is, shifting the landscape of discourse towards the envisaged hegemony of reactionary ideology”. For this purpose, Orbán uses, among other things, reactionary think tanks, such as the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), which now serves as the Hungarian government’s “own cadre factory and contact point for guests from the journalism and right-wing university milieu”. Maassen was the only speaker from Germany. The AfD was not officially represented at the CPAC. „Their lack of access to government participation makes them less interesting for representatives of other parties (…)“, judged the right-wing weekly Junge Freiheit, whose editor-in-chief Dieter Stein was there.

 The CPAC participants largely agreed on their images of fear and enemies (»woke elites«, migrants, trans-activists). But there was not only trusting unity in the »No Woke Zone«. This became clear, for example, in a panel discussion with Hans-Georg Maassen. “Why do we allow illegal immigration?” he asked and answered himself: “Because the left want to destabilize Germany and the European Union.” He was sure of applause for paraphrasing the conspiracy story of the “Great Exchange”. The applause was somewhat more restrained when Maassen spoke out against the distribution of refugees within the EU – a measure that right-wing extremist politicians from Italy also want, but which the Hungarian government vehemently rejects.“

https://jungle.world/artikel/2023/19/chuck-norris-und-die-no-woke-zone

The Soros cause is still occupying the secular-democratic-liberal Jerusalem Post today. All Jews must line up behind Soros as he has become the anti-Semitic punching ball of the Populist International, at least this time. Comparisons are drawn with AEG boss Walther Rathenau, who was also an anti-Semitic hate object of the German right at the time and was murdered. Soros is the richest Jew in the world. It is true that he made his money with speculation, but the critics only see the negative sides of speculation and not its economic advantages and usefulness, since the trader also takes risks that could ruin him. In addition, Soros was not or is not the only speculator. Why then always him as a Jewish speculator, as if one wanted to say that speculation is gathering capital and is Jewish?

“This time, every Jew is with George Soros

MIDDLE ISRAEL: Nothing can excuse Elon Musk’s antisemitic libel against the world’s richest Jew

By AMOTZ ASA-EL

Published: MAY 19, 2023 16:34

‘Dr. Rathenau was struck by at least eight bullets,” reported The New York Times on June 22, 1922. “A hail of bullets, one of them striking him in the throat and passing upward to the brain,” and several hand grenades left the German foreign minister no chance. 

The fabled industrialist who headed the AEG conglomerate and ran the German economy during World War I was assassinated not because of his wealth, and not because of his record, but because he was Jewish, which is why his murder is often seen as a harbinger of his country’s Nazi future. 

Rathenau’s death was particularly proverbial because his solution to what antisemites called “the Jewish problem” was that the Jews do what he did: assimilate. 

No less ironically, Rathenau was in government not because he needed power’s perks, but because, like so many other Jews, he wanted to mend the world, so much so that he advocated banning luxury production, and thus freeing private capital to spur spiritual wealth. Aged 55 when he died, Rathenau’s eventful life thus mixed big business, humanism, and a troubled Jewish soul. 

The very same mixture has animated the life of financial wiz George Soros. 

Fortunately, the 93-year-old punching bag of the Populist International is alive and well. Unfortunately, Soros has just been attacked by a major personality in a way that is reminiscent of the antisemitism Rathenau faced in his life, and calls for every Jew to stand by Soros. That includes this writer, who over the years was critical of our generation’s richest Jew.

RATHENAU’S effort to flee his Jewish identity was for Soros a part of his childhood, having been raised in interwar Budapest by affluent parents who changed their very Jewish name, Schwartz, to the Hungarian Soros. 

The name change didn’t help when the Nazis arrived, and the teenager went through the experience of being hounded for being a Jew, hiding in Budapest until its liberation. Soros then proceeded from a degree in the London School of Economics through a job as a clerk in a merchant bank to the fabled currency-trading career that made of him a billionaire. 

The business of currency trading is easy to misinterpret. Economically, many don’t understand the utility of traders judging, through their deals, any government’s economic conduct. Morally, this trade’s detractors don’t understand the risks it involves. 

In Soros’s case, the two sides of his trade’s image, the fair and the unfair, became apparent in two memorable events. The first happened in 1992’s Black Wednesday, when he dumped £10 billion at a time when Britain, bound to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, failed to raise interest rates when it should have, thus behaving as if its currency was stronger than it actually was. 

The subsequent run on the pound led to its devaluation and to Britain’s abandonment of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Soros is believed to have made that day £1b. 

The move, before which few knew his name, did not spark antisemitic attacks. It was seen for what it was: a gutsy businessman’s legitimate gamble that flashed a much-needed red light in the face of a financially conceited government. 

Things were entirely different three years later, when a host of Asian currencies collapsed and Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said “it is a Jew who triggered the currency collapse.” 

Ironically, it later turned out that Soros did not sell one Malaysian ringgit those days, but that didn’t matter. As happened to him when the Nazis chased him, Soros now unwittingly assumed the role of antisemitism’s stereotypical Jew, the medieval money changer who was allegedly out to swindle, dispossess and conquer the non-Jewish world.

While this was happening to his Jewish identity on the financial side of his activity, what was happening on Soros’s philanthropic side was no less ironic, and even more tragic. 

Eager to better the world, Soros began deploying his fortune to advance freedom and prosperity throughout the world. What began during the Cold War with assistance to dissident movements, like Poland’s Solidarity and Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77, was later followed by opening business schools in the postcommunist world and financing infrastructure projects in the Third World. 

Antisemitism against Soros cannot be tolerated from anyone

Ultimately, Soros headed a multibillion-dollar effort so vast that at one point he was the world’s second-largest foreign-aid provider, just after Japan, and ahead of (!) the US.

To antisemites this generosity represented not the idealism and generosity with which it is obviously imbued, but the conspiracy theories with which they are infected. 

Soros, for his part, could indeed be tactless. As this column argued last decade (“By George,” 14 July 2017), promoting Muslim immigration into Hungary without living there was both unfair and unwise, and such was also Soros’s claim the previous decade that antisemitism “is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States” (“The sorrows of George Soros,” 21 November 2003).

However, such criticism cannot license denying Soros’s philanthropic greatness, as maverick carmaker Elon Musk just did in a tweet that claimed Soros “hates humanity” and that his endeavors are designed “to erode the very fabric of civilization.” 

Such an underhanded attack must make every Jew, regardless of ideological inclination or political stripe, defend Soros. 

Musk, whose own philanthropy has been attacked for reportedly adding up to hardly 1% of his wealth, and for having been occasionally channeled to his business partners, is livid because Soros sold his stake in Musk’s Tesla. 

That can explain the impulsive Musk’s anger, but it cannot justify libel, let alone antisemitic vitriol, even if aimed at the controversial Soros, a mogul whose treatment of his wealth could hardly be more idealistic, generous, and Jewish. 

www.MiddleIsrael.net 

The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the best-selling Mitz’ad Ha’ivelet Hayehudi (The Jewish March of Folly, Yediot Sfarim, 2019), a revisionist history of the Jewish people’s political leadership.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-743544

The emeritus Jewish Harvard professor Akan Dershowitz, who sees Soros as the greatest pest in relation to Israel, Zionism and Judaism, has a completely different, even diametrically opposed opinion, and even accuses him, like Musk, of being a villain/rogue, above all through his support of anti-Isreal NGOs such as Human Rights Watch:

“Dershowitz: Jews shouldn’t be defending George Soros against Elon Musk – opinion

No single person has done more to damage Israel’s standing in the world, and especially among so-called progressives, than George Soros.

By Alan Dershowitz

Published: JUNE 6, 2023 04:05

Why are so many prominent Jews defending George Soros – a virulent anti-Zionist who has never been friendly to the Jewish people. 

An op-ed in The Jerusalem Post typified what many Jews have been saying since Elon Musk compared Soros to Magneto, a Marvel super-villain.

The op-ed was headlined: “This time every Jew is with George Soros.” It concluded that Musk’s “attack must make every Jew, regardless of ideological orientation or political stripe, defend Soros.”

Well, not this Jew. I refuse to defend Soros, and I refuse to join the Jewish chorus of criticism against Musk.

Musk has been falsely accused of antisemitism because of his criticism and mockery of George Soros. These accusations come from the ADL, the American Jewish Committee, and even the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Soros is Jewish by heritage. Musk is not. But their religious backgrounds should play no role in evaluating the charges and counter-charges. The facts and history of both men should be evaluated.

“Soros’s defenders try to shut down criticism of the billionaire by claiming it is antisemitic because Soros himself is Jewish. But no one has financed more destructive attacks on Israel and the American Jewish community than Soros. He is, at best, a self-hating Jew, and shouldn’t be let off the hook because of his ancestry.”

Farley Weiss

George Soros has done more harm to Israel than any other single person in the world

No single person has done more to damage Israel’s standing in the world, and especially among so-called progressives, than George Soros. Without his support, the two major organizations that have done the most to shift the left-wing paradigm against Israel, would not have the pernicious influence they currently possess.

Human Rights Watch was founded by publisher and human rights advocate Robert Bernstein. For years it critiqued the denial of human rights by all countries based on two criteria: the seriousness of the human rights violations in any particular nation; and the inability of the citizens of that nation to protest and remedy such violations. Then a Soros-funded radical anti-Israel zealot named Kenneth Roth took over the organization and turned it into an organization that specialized in demonizing Israel without regard to the previously outlined criteria. The Israel bashing became so one-sided and extreme that Bernstein wrote:

“As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

After that, matters got even worse.

Roth deployed “human rights” as a weapon targeting Israel. Its one-sided “reports” were used as primary justifications and excuses for selective condemnation of Israel by the United Nations and its various committees. They were also circulated on university campuses around the world. Despite their obvious anti-Israel bias, supporters pointed to the fact that Roth too is of Jewish heritage, thus purporting to lend credibility to his anti-Israel accusations.

Natan Sharansky documented the bias of Human Rights Watch: “Here is an organization created by the goodwill of the free world to fight violations of human rights, which has become a tool in the hands of dictatorial regimes to fight against democracies … It is time to call a spade a spade. The real activity of this organization today is a far cry from what it was set up 30 years ago to do: throw light in dark places where there is really no other way to find out what is happening regarding human rights.”

Soros contributed $100,000,000 to Roth’s organization. (The Guardian, September 7, 2010) And since he has been funding this organization, its priorities have shifted even more to singling out Israel for demonization and applying a double standard to the nation-state of the Jewish people. The impact of this demonization cannot be overstated: HRW has done more to turn the international community and progressives against Israel than any other organization. This is ALL Soros’s fault, and Soros is justly condemned for shifting this paradigm against Israel.

The second most influential organization in turning progressives against Israel is another Soros-funded group: J Street. Despite its claim to be a progressive pro-Israel and pro-Palestine organization, J Street has done much to turn most progressive and some liberal Democrats – especially members of Congress, as well as academics and media pundits – against Israel. Soros contributed a million dollars to J Street, which, according to Haaretz is “20 times larger than any previous donation J Street Action Fund received” (August 23, 2022). J Street now lobbies Congress against Israel and supports candidates who are virulently anti-Israel, as does Soros.

Attorney Farley Weiss, former president of The National Council of Young Israel, put it exactly right when he concluded: “Soros’s defenders try to shut down criticism of the billionaire by claiming it is antisemitic because Soros himself is Jewish. But no one has financed more destructive attacks on Israel and the American Jewish community than Soros. He is, at best, a self-hating Jew, and shouldn’t be let off the hook because of his ancestry.”

I, TOO, have been a strident critic of Soros, and his pernicious influence not only on Israel but on American domestic issues, such as his funding of progressive candidates for district attorneys, such as Alvin Bragg and Chesa Boudin, who have politicized law enforcement. My criticism of Soros did not include comparing him to “Magneto,” who, like Soros, survived the Holocaust. I would not make that comparison because I had never heard of this super-villain, but I agree with Musk that Soros’s acts, contributions and motivation do contribute to the erosion of the “fabric of civilization.”

In another Post oped, Shlomo Fischer criticized my defense of Musk by false accusing Musk cursing out Soros “as a Jew.” He did nothing of the sort. He characterized him as a super-villain, which is fair comment, even if he compared him to a Holocaust survivor who became a villain. If the shoe fits…

Musk himself has shown no hostility toward Israel or the Jewish people. He is not an antisemite, and what he said is not antisemitic.

It is true that some right-wing antisemites have focused on Soros in promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories about “the Jews” controlling the world. Just as antisemites of the past blamed “the Rothschilds” for many of the world’s evils, so too some contemporary bigots blame Soros.

The difference is that the Rothschilds were strong supporters of the Jewish community and of Zionism. Not only is Soros not a supporter, he is an opponent. He is “Jewish” only on his parents’ side and he boasts of the fact that his mother was an antisemite.

Even so, every Jew should condemn antisemitic and illegitimate misuse of Soros’s Jewish heritage. But this misuse should not prevent or deter legitimate criticism of Soros’s individual influence on the world, not as a Jew but as a super-villain in his own right.

The writer is professor emeritus at Harvard. Portions of this op-ed appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-745296

The diaspora envoy of the Israeli right-wing government, on the other hand, defends Elon Musk, criticizes Soros for acting against the radical right-wing Israeli government and praises Musk as a model of a successful inventor. According to Soros, the Israeli Foreign Ministry allegedly, the ADL and now also the US Anti-Semitism Commissioner of the Biden government, which is accused of acting with Soros against Bibi and consorts, classifies Musk criticism as anti-Semitic and makes comparisons with Rothschild bashing. It will be interesting to see whether Trump, Jareed Kushner and Desantis will also have their say.

“US antisemitism envoy pans attacks on Soros, after criticism by Diaspora minister

Following Amichai Chikli’s defense of Elon Musk, who claimed that megadonor ‘hates humanity,’ Deborah Lipstadt likens such rhetoric to antisemitic tropes invoking Rothschild family

By Jacob Magid 20 May 2023, 3:50 am

(L) US Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt speaks at a conference in Brussels on October 20, 2022. (R) Likud MK Amichai Chikli speaks at the Federation of Local Authorities conference in Tel Aviv, December 7, 2022. (US State Department/Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

The Biden administration’s antisemitism envoy on Friday decried attacks against Jewish billionaire George Soros, a day after Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli came to the defense of Elon Musk, who came under fire for saying that Soros “hates humanity.”

Musk on Monday compared the philanthropist to a comic book villain, drawing criticism from the Foreign Ministry, the ADL and other Jewish organizations, who said the comments stoked antisemitism. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen later disavowed his office’s statement, though.

Chikli defended Musk on Thursday, saying, “As Israel’s minister who’s entrusted on combating anti-Semitism, I would like to clarify that the Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model.”

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“Criticism of Soros — who finances the most hostile organizations to the Jewish people and the state of Israel is anything but anti-Semitism, quite the opposite,” Chikli said.

US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt became the first Biden official to weigh in on the matter, tweeting Friday that “irrespective of how one feels about George Soros’s politics or policies, it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on him rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric.”

“In bygone eras, the antisemites invoked the Rothschild family to advance their conspiracies about Jews. Today they use Soros to do so,” she said.

Last month, The Times of Israel pressed Lipstadt on former US president Donald Trump’s denunciation of the Manhattan prosecutor who indicted him as having been “hand-picked” by Soros.

“I don’t want to get involved in that because there’s a campaign, but I will say that I’m disturbed by many people and many other countries and individuals who use those kinds of boogeymen. It doesn’t always, but it certainly can have antisemitic implications,” she said, avoiding direct criticism.

Soros is a Holocaust survivor and megadonor to progressive causes, and a common target of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Chikli is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.

Touching off the controversy on Monday, Musk said that Soros “reminds me of Magneto,” a comic book villain who features in Marvel’s X-Men series. The character, like Soros, is a Holocaust survivor.

As Israel’s minister who’s entrusted on combating anti-Semitism, I would like to clarify that the Israeli government and the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model. Criticism of Soros – who finances the most hostile…

— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) May 18, 2023

In a follow-up comment, Musk said, “He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”

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While Musk has railed against progressive policies, what prompted his attack on Soros wasn’t clear. On the same day as the tweets, however, Soros’s family investment office cashed out its investment in Tesla, Musk’s electric car company.

The Foreign Ministry linked Musk’s comments to antisemitism.

“The phrase ‘The Jews’ spiked today on the list of topics trending on Twitter following a tweet with antisemitic overtones by none other than the owner and CEO of the social network, Elon Musk,” the Foreign Ministry tweeted on its official account.

It said that Musk’s tweet “immediately led to antisemitic conspiracy theories on Twitter.”

Cohen later disavowed the statements.

“There will be no more tweets like that,” Cohen told Channel 14, in a rare instance of a minister refuting a statement from their own ministry.

Soros, 92, has long been a target of conservatives for backing progressive causes and politicians in the United States and worldwide. In the last decade or so, some of the attacks have echoed antisemitic conspiracy theories, depicting Soros as satanic, accusing him of seeking world control and falsely accusing him of helping perpetrate the Holocaust rather than surviving it as a child.

These conspiracy theories accelerated after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, who made Soros a focus of his final campaign ad that year and who has relentlessly portrayed Soros as a villain as he runs for the 2024 election.

JTA and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-antisemitism-envoy-pans-attacks-on-soros-after-criticism-by-diaspora-minister/

In any case, Musk is now hitting back, especially against the Anti-Defamation League, which he accuses of being a Defamation League:

“Elon Musk takes aim at the ADL after CEO says his tweets ‚will embolden extremists‘

Musk tweeted “ADL should just drop the ‘A.’” The tweet implied that the group, which is the most prominent antisemitism watchdog in the country, should instead be named the “Defamation League.”

By BEN SALES/JTA

Published: MAY 18, 2023 04:11

Updated: MAY 18, 2023 04:13

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt speaks during the Anti-Defamation League’s „Never is Now“ summit at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan in New York City, New York, US, November 10, 2022.

(photo credit: REUTERS/JEENAH MOON)

Hours after tweeting that George Soros “hates humanity,” Elon Musk bashed the Anti-Defamation League, appearing to draw praise from a series of white supremacist accounts on Twitter, which he owns.

On Tuesday afternoon, Musk tweeted, “ADL should just drop the ‘A.’” The tweet implied that the group, which is the most prominent antisemitism watchdog in the country, should instead be named the “Defamation League.”

Roller-coaster relationship between the ADL and Musk

Musk’s tweet came after ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Musk’s remarks about Soros, marking the latest chapter in the roller-coaster relationship between the ADL and the Twitter CEO. When Musk was poised to buy the social media platform, Greenblatt praised him. But in the months since that acquisition, the ADL has been increasingly critical of Musk, accusing him of taking a lax attitude toward policing hate speech.

When asked for a response, the ADL pointed to Greenblatt’s statement from earlier in the day, in which he took Musk to task for his Soros remarks, including a tweet in which Musk compared the progressive megadonor and Holocaust survivor to a comic book villain.

Greenblatt tweeted that Musk’s comments “will embolden extremists who already contrive anti-Jewish conspiracies and have tried to attack Soros and Jewish communities as a result.” (The shooter in the Pittsburgh synagogue attack in 2018 referenced a conspiracy theory about Soros.)

Another Jewish organizational executive, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, echoed that criticism, tweeting, “The lie that Jews want to destroy civilization has led to the persecution of Jewish people for centuries. Musk should know better.” And David Saranga, a senior official at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, tweeted that Musk’s post had “a whiff of antisemitism.”

“Freedom of Speech, Not Freedom of Reach.” Twitter Owner Elon Musk (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The current spat is a marked difference from Greenblatt’s attitude last October, when he praised Musk as “an amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator,” and as “the Henry Ford of our time.” Even though he later acknowledged that “the Henry Ford reference was wrong,” given that Ford was perhaps the most notorious antisemite in American history, Greenblatt added, “We want to be cautiously optimistic about how Musk will run the platform because he successfully has innovated other industries and tackled incredibly complex problems.”

Since then, the ADL has taken a more negative view. Less than a month after the Henry Ford analogy, the ADL called for an ad boycott of Twitter due to a spike in antisemitism on the site. In the months that have followed, the ADL has criticized Twitter for removing hate speech guardrails by dissolving an advisory body focused on “Trust and Safety” and by allowing antisemites who had been banned to return to the platform.

The Musk-ADL dynamic parallels the deteriorating relationship the ADL had with another social media giant, Facebook. Several years ago, the ADL worked with Facebook to curb hate speech, but later led a high-profile ad boycott of the platform when it judged that Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, were not committed to preventing bigotry on the site.

And Musk is not the only public figure who has targeted the ADL amid broader criticism of the left. Recently-fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson repeatedly criticized the group after the ADL called on him to be ousted when he promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theory on his show. In December, Carlson claimed that the ADL, one of the country’s largest Jewish organizations, “extorted” companies for money. He said that Greenblatt leverages the ADL’s reputation for “moral authority and cash,” and threatens, “Send me money or I’ll call you names.”

Musk’s tweet about the ADL appears to have unleashed yet more antisemitism on Twitter. In the hours after Musk posted the tweet, he garnered praise from a string of accounts posting antisemitic content, which shared his tweet with their own commentary.

An account called “White Power Ranger” tweeted, “The ADL is a jewish supremacist foreign lobby/spy group.” Another with an avatar of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon that has become a symbol of the alt-right, tweeted a cartoon of a traditional fascist symbol along with the words, “We’re back.” Another posted a GIF of Adolf Hitler smiling alongside the message, “Based.”

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-743395

But the Netanyahu government is allied with Soros-hater Orban, who has become the Mecca for all authoritarians in the world. And behold, the Israeli foreign minister is playing a dual role. Orban Hungary and Budapest is now becoming the new Mecca for „illiberal democracies“ After masses of Trumpists, CPAC, Tucker Carlson, Georg Maassen and Dieter Stein made the pilgrimage from Junge Freiheit to Budapest for illiberal congresses and summits. now also Eli Cohen, who is now praising Orban-Hungary as a model for „judicial reform“ in Israel. Especially since a law against NGOs and foreign organizations similar to Putin’s agent law is to be enacted, i.e. also against Soros.

“FM Cohen headed to Hungary next week, with Orban meeting in the works

Top diplomat to also visit Austria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia on Europe tour; Budapest has been called model for proposed judicial overhaul

By Lazar Berman 22 May 2023, 10:50 pm

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will be heading to Europe next week, stopping in Hungary, Austria, Croatia, and Slovakia.

He will meet his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto, and, though the details remain up in the air, there is a possibility that he will meet with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Orban’s right-wing government has warm ties with Israel’s right and has supported the current government’s bid to overhaul the justice system, which resembles steps Budapest took several years ago.

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Gergely Gulyas, the head of Orban’s office, was set to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials earlier this month, but backed out because of the fight between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Gulyas would have been the first Hungarian official to visit Israel since the swearing-in of the new Israeli government.

Opponents of the government’s currently frozen plans to overhaul the judicial system have invoked efforts to transform the judiciary in Hungary, which Orban has sought to shape into an “illiberal democracy.”

Orban’s Fidesz party took aim at the country’s courts after being elected to office in 2010, overhauling the constitution and increasing political control over the courts. The moves are seen as central to what critics call the country’s democratic backsliding in recent years.

Netanyahu has long had close relations with Orban, who has been in power since 2010. Their bond has tightened further since Netanyahu’s return to power after the general election in November, with the two showering praise upon each other and looking to further both bilateral ties and their own connection.

Budapest has in recent years been Jerusalem’s staunchest supporter in the European Union, blocking several efforts to issue statements critical of Israeli policies. For instance, in 2020, Hungary was one of the only countries that did not publicly speak out against Israel’s plan, which has since been scuttled, to unilaterally annex swaths of the West Bank.

After Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc won parliamentary elections last year, Orban tweeted: “What a great victory for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel! Hard times require strong leaders. Welcome back!” He attached a picture of himself holding Netanyahu’s new memoir.

During his Europe trip next week, Cohen will also participate in a meeting of the Austerlitz format, a regional forum of Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/fm-cohen-headed-to-hungary-next-week-with-orban-meeting-in-the-works/

In short: With all the allegations of anti-Semitism regarding Sorosbashing, the Netanyahu government with its right-wing extremists and its Israeli Jobbiks together with Orban are also against Soros and the democratic-secular-liberal forces in Israel and want an equally authoritarian dictatorship, which then can have nothing to do with anti-Semitism?! Or, after right and left anti-Semitism, is there now also liberal anti-Semitism from Israel and from so-called Jewish self-haters themselves who support Soros and are against Netanjahu and Orban? In any case, the Netanyahu government now has what it wanted from Orban: Support for their “judicial reform”, which is intended to create an authoritarian dictatorship like Hungary and  Orban Hungary to be the first European state to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Now, the Jerusalem Post lists the pros and cons of support from Jewish associations and the Israeli parties for Desantis. His enorsement by Elon Musk is not seen as positively since Musk’s Soros tweet.

“What US Jews should know about presidential candidate Ron DeSantis

DeSantis is set to officially announce his campaign in a chat with Elon Musk, who was just condemned by a wide range of Jewish figures (and defended by a handful of others).

By RON KAMPEAS/JTA

Published: MAY 24, 2023 23:28

Updated: MAY 25, 2023 15:2

Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Jerusalem Post and Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem Celebrating the Faces of Israel conference.

(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Jerusalem Post)

In late April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Jerusalem, voicing support for Israeli West Bank settlements, touting a law he had just signed giving families thousands of dollars per year in private school tuition vouchers and signing a bill that increased penalties for antisemitic harassment.

Two weeks later, his education department rejected two new textbooks on the Holocaust as part of a clampdown on what he has called “woke indoctrination.”

Those two developments may anchor the Jewish arguments for and against DeSantis as he stands on the cusp of announcing a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Supporters paint DeSantis, 44, as a steadfast ally of Israel who speaks to the pocketbook concerns of Jewish families. In the years since he became Florida’s governor in 2019, the state has seen an influx of Orthodox Jews, drawn both by lax pandemic policies and the promise of discounted day school tuition.

But DeSantis’ opponents portray him as a cultural reactionary whose anti-“woke” politics are inhibiting education on the Holocaust and antisemitism — along with teaching about race, gender and sexuality. He has repeatedly condemned George Soros, the progressive megadonor who is an avatar of right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories. Surveys show that his near-total restriction of abortion rights is unpopular with Jews nationally.And hanging over the campaign is the candidacy of former president Donald Trump, who is running for a second term, is leading in the polls — and shares much in common with DeSantis even as he has attacked him.

While DeSantis’ allies have played up some of their differences (such as DeSantis’ youth and military service), when it comes to their respective records on issues of interest to Jewish voters, Trump and DeSantis are less distinct.

Each has sought to cultivate Jewish support by focusing on Israel and erasing church-state separations that, Orthodox Jewish leaders argue, inhibit religious freedoms. And both have attracted white nationalist supporters while leaning into the culture wars.

DeSantis is set to officially announce his campaign in a chat with Elon Musk, who was just condemned by a wide range of Jewish figures (and defended by a handful of others) for tweeting that Soros “hates humanity.”

Here’s what you need to know about DeSantis’s Jewish record:

He has been an outspoken booster of Israel.

DeSantis, a Catholic, has a visceral affinity for Israel, and has framed his support for the country in religious terms.

“When I took office, I promised to make Florida the most pro-Israel state in the United States, and we have been able to deliver on that promise,” he said this week, addressing Evangelical Christians at the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Orlando, The Jerusalem Post reported.

He likes to tell audiences that on his first visit to Israel as a US congressman, his wife Casey scooped up water from the Sea of Galilee into an empty bottle to save for baptisms. The couple had yet to have children.

The water came in handy for the baptisms of their first and second children, but after DeSantis was elected governor, staff at his residence cleared away the unremarkable bottle (which was still half full) after their second child was baptized in 2019. Not long afterward, DeSantis mentioned the minor fiasco in passing at a synagogue in Boca Raton, and before he knew it people were sending him bottles of water from Israel.

The gesture still moves him. “I was sent, all the way from Israel, this beautiful big glass jar filled with water from the Sea of Galilee that sat on my desk in the governor’s office in Tallahassee until our third child was born and baptized, and we used that water to do it,” DeSantis said last month when he visited Israel.

DeSantis made Israel a focus when he was congressman, taking a leading role in advocating for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among a group of lawmakers who toured Jerusalem in March 2017 and was bold enough to pick out what he said would be the likeliest site. 

In November of that year, as chairman of the House national security subcommittee, he convened a hearing on what he called the necessity of moving the embassy. The following month, Trump announced the move, and the site the Trump administration chose was the one DeSantis had identified.

In May 2019, just months after becoming governor, DeSantis convened his state cabinet in Jerusalem and gave a definition of antisemitism favored by the pro-Israel community the force of law. The same year, he banned government officials from using Airbnb after the vacation rental broker removed listings in West Bank settlements. DeSantis’ blacklisting of the company was seen was key to Airbnb reversing the decision.

He’s garnered allies — and enemies — among Florida’s Jews.

DeSantis has done much to cultivate support in Florida’s growing Orthodox community, which shares his enthusiasm for bringing faith into government.

In 2021, DeSantis came to a Chabad synagogue in Surfside to sign two bills, one affording state recognition to Hatzalah, the Jewish ambulance service, and the other tasking all Florida public schools with setting aside a daily moment of silence, long a key initiative of the Chabad movement.

In his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, DeSantis campaigned on steering state money to religious day schools. This year he made good on the promise, signing a law that makes $7,800 in scholarship funds available annually to schoolchildren across the state, regardless of income, and to be used at their school of choice.

DeSantis also has plenty of Jewish enemies in a state where the majority of the Jewish community votes for Democrats.

In his first term, he had a contentious relationship with Nikki Fried, a Democrat who, as agriculture commissioner, was one of the four ministers in the Cabinet who had a vote. DeSantis maneuvered to freeze her out of the decision-making process.

Fried, who describes herself as a “good Jewish girl from Miami,” now chairs the state’s Democratic Party. She routinely calls DeSantis a fascist. In April, she was arrested at an abortion rights protest outside Tallahassee’s City Hall.

Under DeSantis, Florida has prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That stance has set him up for clashes with other prominent Jews in the state as well. Last year, he suspended Andrew Warren, a Jewish state attorney, because Warren pledged not to prosecute individuals who seek or provide abortions after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

L’Dor Va-Dor, a synagogue in Boynton Beach, spearheaded the first lawsuit filed against Florida’s abortion ban in 2022, citing religious freedom arguments. Daniel Uhlfelder, a Jewish lawyer who drew attention when he dressed as the Grim Reaper to protest DeSantis’s reopening of the beaches during the pandemic, signed on as an attorney for the synagogue.

His “war on woke” has had implications on Holocaust education.

Recently, much of DeSantis’ tenure has been defined by what he calls the “war on woke,” a term originated by Black Americans to describe awareness of racial inequity but now more often functions as shorthand for conservative criticism of progressive values.  DeSantis has enacted multiple pieces of legislation restricting what can be taught in schools and has also limited transgender rights, banning gender-affirming medical care for children.

While most of the books challenged under DeSantis’ education laws have focused on race and gender, the study of the Holocaust has been affected as well. In addition to the education department’s rejection of the Holocaust textbooks this month, Florida laws that make teachers liable for teaching inappropriate content to students have led multiple school districts to take Holocaust novels off the shelves, including a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary.

DeSantis calls claims that he’s chilling Holocaust education “fake narratives.” He and his defenders point to his requiring all Florida public schools to certify that they teach about the Holocaust.

Neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity has increased under his watch.

A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League described an upward trend of extremist and antisemitic activity in the Sunshine State, driven in part by emerging white supremacist groups — some of whom have gone to bat for DeSantis in the past.

DeSantis has been dogged by accusations that he caters to the far right. One of the most stinging exchanges in the 2018 election season came when Andrew Gillum, DeSantis’s Democratic opponent in the race, accused DeSantis of not being forceful enough in renouncing the white nationalists who expressed support for him in robocalls.

“First of all, he’s got neo-Nazis helping him out in this state,” Gillum said. “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.” DeSantis flinched.

DeSantis eked out a victory a few weeks later, and was soundly reelected last year, but he remains sensitive on the issue. Last year, when neo-Nazis intimidated Orlando’s Jews with signs and shouts at an overpass, politicians in the state reflexively condemned them. A reporter asked DeSantis why he had not done so, and after calling the neo-Nazis “jackasses,” the governor said the question was a “smear” and added, “We’re not playing that game.” (Several months later, the leader of the antisemitic propaganda group Goyim Defense League moved from California to Florida, saying he thought the Sunshine State would be more hospitable to his efforts.)

DeSantis has also called liberal prosecutors “Soros-funded.” It’s not an unusual political gambit — the billionaire Jewish liberal donor does fund progressives running for prosecutor. But Soros has also been the focus of multiple conspiracy theories that antisemitism watchdogs say are antisemitic, casting the Holocaust survivor as a malign influence with excessive power.

Some Jewish donors are already supporting him.

DeSantis appeared last year at a conference in New York of Jewish conservatives, where he talked to a friendly audience about his war against the “woke” and was also conveniently in the room with some of the most generous Republican donors.

He is reportedly working with some of those donors, who gave generously to his gubernatorial runs. He was a star last November at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual Las Vegas confab, and Axios reported that he met with Miriam Adelson, the widow of GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson, as well as other Jewish donors when he was in Jerusalem last month.

A number of them are hanging back, not wanting to alienate Trump while he remains influential in the party. (Adelson has said she does not want to weigh in on the primaries.)

Among the Jewish donors and fundraisers said to be in DeSantis’s camp: Jay Zeidman, a onetime Jewish White House liaison who is now a Houston-based businessman; Gabriel Groisman, a lawyer who is the former mayor of Bal Harbor; and Fred Karlinsky, a leading insurance lawyer.

Last week, Jewish conservative political commentator Dave Rubin tweeted that DeSantis would bring “Freedom, sanity and competency” to the country. Groisman shared the tweet with the word “This.”

https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-744160

Elon Musk is a clear enemy of the Democrats, but also of Trump, although he has announced his own peace plan for Ukraine and now also for Taiwan, which advises Taiwan to be “integrated” into China. Conversely, Musk is very important in terms of critical infrastructure, be it Space X or space satellite systems like Star Link, both for Ukraine and Taiwan, although Musk now wants to counter allegations that he is too pro-Chinese because of his Tesla plant in Shanghai with rumors that Tesla now also wants to invest in India. The Taipei Times also illustrates this with the scenario of what Taiwan would do if China cuts the main underwater communication cables without Elon Musk’s satellite system:

Tue, May 23, 2023 page2

Foreign minister Wu pans Musk for Taiwan remarks

PRESSURE POINT: Beijing might seek to lean on Musk to prevent his SpaceX from providing Taiwan access to its Starlink satellite system, ‘The Economist’ said

Staff writer, with CNA

Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) called out Elon Musk on Twitter, saying the value of democracy transcends that of money after the Tesla CEO said that China was likely to “integrate” Taiwan.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu speaks at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee in Taipei yesterday.

Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Time

Asked in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday last week if “China would make a move to take control of Taiwan,” Musk said that “the official policy of China is that Taiwan should be integrated… One does not need to read between the lines.”

“There is a certain inevitability to the situation,” he added.

“That is their policy, and I think you should take their word seriously,” Musk said.

Regarding whether such a move by China would be bad for Tesla, Musk said that the Chinese economy and the global economy are like conjoined twins and any attempt to separate them would affect them both.

Responding to Musk’s comments, Wu on Friday wrote on Twitter that the Chinese Communist Party’s “bullying & threats are a concern, especially for those who would rather stay free & demo

Beijing’s global expansion undermines the rules-based international order and “status quo,” he added.

“Mr. @ElonMusk, other than money, there is something we call VALUES,” he wrote on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Twitter account.

The post has so far received more than 130,000 views and hundreds of responses, with some commenters praising Wu for speaking out, saying they believe Musk only cares about his own interests.

Other commenters said they believed Musk was only expressing the thoughts of the business community and that Taiwan would never boycott Tesla.

Among them was Mark Simon — previously the personal assistant of Jimmy Lai (黎智英), the jailed founder of Hong Kong’s Next Digital, formerly Next Media — who said that taking on Musk was a “bad fight to pick.”

Separately, a report published by The Economist on Thursday said that from the perspective of China, the Starlink satellite Internet system provided to Kyiv by Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) not only puts Russia at a disadvantage in its war with Ukraine, but also raises concerns about Taiwan.

If SpaceX gave Taiwan access to the system, it would make a Chinese invasion much more difficult, it said.

Analysts say that if China invaded Taiwan, it could start by severing the 14 undersea Internet cables that keep the country connected to the world, the report said, adding that Taiwan is adding cables and planning how to defend its landing points.

The government is also testing antennae in 700 locations, including outside Taiwan, that would be able to send and receive signals from low Earth orbit satellites, like the ones Starlink uses, The Economist said.

Although China has the capability to shoot down satellites, the Starlink network is made up of more than 4,000 satellites and aims eventually to have tens of thousands.

As such, China might have more success leaning on the SpaceX CEO to deny Taiwan access to Starlink, given that Musk’s other major venture, Tesla, has a large factory in Shanghai, The Economist said.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/05/23/2003800269

Is Musk Magneto or Professor Xavier. Both in questions of Judaism, which large parts of Israel regard as anti-Semitism due to his Soros tweet, although he has not yet drawn up a Middle East plan, but for Taiwan and Ukraine,and he is involved and expresses himself very openly. Although his Ukraine plan is more likely to correspond to Trump, his Taiwan plan is not. It remains to be seen how Desantis, who he now supports, will perform in the presidential candidate election and what positions he himself has. At the same time, a debate is raging in the US about whether to adopt the organization’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD) criteria of anti-Semitism and whether Elon Musk or others should be considered anti-Semitic, such as double standards in criticizing Israel; who do not see Israel as an equal state or question Israel’s right to exist and its legitimacy. Lo and behold, the Israeli foreign minister is playing a dual role. Orban-Hungary and Budapest is now becoming the new Mecca for “illiberal democracies” After masses of Trumpists, CPAC, Tucker Carlson, Georg Masen and Dieter Stein make the pilgrimage from Junge Freiheit to Budapest for illiberal congresses and summits. now also Eli Cohen, who now praises Orban-Hungary as a model for „judicial reform“ in Israel. Especially since a law against NGOs and foreign organizations similar to Putin’s agent law is to be enacted, i.e. also against Soros.

“FM Cohen headed to Hungary next week, with Orban meeting in the works

Top diplomat to also visit Austria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia on Europe tour; Budapest has been called model for proposed judicial overhaul

By Lazar Berman 22 May 2023, 10:50 pm

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will be heading to Europe next week, stopping in Hungary, Austria, Croatia, and Slovakia.

He will meet his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto, and, though the details remain up in the air, there is a possibility that he will meet with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Orban’s right-wing government has warm ties with Israel’s right and has supported the current government’s bid to overhaul the justice system, which resembles steps Budapest took several years ago.

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Gergely Gulyas, the head of Orban’s office, was set to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials earlier this month, but backed out because of the fight between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Gulyas would have been the first Hungarian official to visit Israel since the swearing-in of the new Israeli government.

Opponents of the government’s currently frozen plans to overhaul the judicial system have invoked efforts to transform the judiciary in Hungary, which Orban has sought to shape into an “illiberal democracy.”

Orban’s Fidesz party took aim at the country’s courts after being elected to office in 2010, overhauling the constitution and increasing political control over the courts. The moves are seen as central to what critics call the country’s democratic backsliding in recent years.

Netanyahu has long had close relations with Orban, who has been in power since 2010. Their bond has tightened further since Netanyahu’s return to power after the general election in November, with the two showering praise upon each other and looking to further both bilateral ties and their own connection.

Budapest has in recent years been Jerusalem’s staunchest supporter in the European Union, blocking several efforts to issue statements critical of Israeli policies. For instance, in 2020, Hungary was one of the only countries that did not publicly speak out against Israel’s plan, which has since been scuttled, to unilaterally annex swaths of the West Bank.

After Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc won parliamentary elections last year, Orban tweeted: “What a great victory for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel! Hard times require strong leaders. Welcome back!” He attached a picture of himself holding Netanyahu’s new memoir.

During his Europe trip next week, Cohen will also participate in a meeting of the Austerlitz format, a regional forum of Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/fm-cohen-headed-to-hungary-next-week-with-orban-meeting-in-the-works/

While Orban celebrates himself as the unwoke inter-nationalist, Putin now also wants to have the first settlement areas and unwoke safe spaces established in the new Unwokestan-Russia.

„Russia seeks to build a village for conservative Americans

Russian lawyer Timur Beslangurov claims that thousands of Americans want to live in the village which will be funded by its future residents.

Russia has announced plans to build a village in Moscow for conservative Americans and Canadians who wish to avoid liberal discourse, according to a report last week by Russian-state media RIA Novosti.

The plans were announced by Timur Beslangurov, a partner in the VISTA Immigration law firm, who Russian media said was involved in the development of the project.

„In the Moscow region, in 2024, they will start building a village for Americans and Canadians who want to move. About 200 families want to emigrate for ideological reasons,“ Beslangurov said in a speech at a forum reported on by RIA.

According to the source, the project will be funded by soon-to-be immigrants in the region but required the approval of the regional government.

Who wants to move to the village?

Beslangurov claimed that tens of thousands of people have shown interest in moving to Russia, adding that these people do not have Russian heritage.

„The reason is the inculcation of radical values: Today they have 70 genders, and it’s unknown what will happen next. Many normal people emigrate, including [those] considering Russia, but they face huge bureaucratic problems of Russian migration legislation,“ he said.

„The reason is the inculcation of radical values: Today they have 70 genders, and it’s unknown what will happen next. Many normal people emigrate, including [those] considering Russia, but they face huge bureaucratic problems of Russian migration legislation.“

Timur Beslangurov

He added that the desire to move to Russia is particularly strong among traditional Catholics who „very strongly believe in the prophecy that Russia will remain the only Christian country in the world.“

The „prophecy“ the lawyer referenced may be related to an interpretation of Ezekiel 38 and 39 from the Old Testament. According to some interpretations, a large war against Israel will be launched by Russia and other countries. The same people believe that this battle will happen as part of Armageddon.

LGBTQ+ rights in Russia 

Russia is known for its anti-LGBTQ+ views, having installed several anti-LGBTQ+ policies in past years.

In February 2023, Russia launched a system that scans the internet for illegal content, making it easier for authorities to detect unsanctioned protests, anti-war dissent and „LGBTQ+ propaganda.“

Another law was also created which issues fines for individuals or organizations trying to promote „LGBTQ+ propaganda.“ This law has criminalized public mention of LGBTQ+ identities.

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-743125

Maybe this would also be a place for Trump, should he not become US President again, emigrate into exile in Siberia in view of too many court cases, maybe even another colonization idea as an alternative to Mars for Elon Musk. That might solve some problems for all sides.