Anti-Semitism in the Net: No logic, no consistency, no plausibility

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Anyone who is on the Internet and has perceptive organs will most likely have noticed once before supposedly critical, hateful statements about George Soros. The American-Hungarian billionaire, investor and philanthropist has become a household name, largely through social media.

George Soros is of Jewish descent, his name works on the net as a lightning rod of anti-Semitism. Just as "criticism of Israel" or "Zionism criticism" is thrown by the left and Muslim groups as camouflage over their anti-Semitism, "Soros criticism" is a fig leaf for hatred of Jews, especially from the right and right-wing extremists.

One of the most important functions of social networks is memes, shards of thought designed to be distributed. This can be a picture-text combination, an animated picture (gif) or a brief anecdote. Sometimes a clever pun is enough. The first big German meme on social media was probably "Zensursula", invented by the Twitter Earth Spirit. Mentioned on Ursula von der Leyen, it combined "censorship" and "Ursula" in 2009, when the then family minister wanted to introduce the network ban.

The Mem Zensursula was the perfect condensation of a political stance and an enemy image, it was one of the key instruments for the end of the network blocks. Memes can have enormous political and social impact, they include an incentive to spread as well as a content message, an Internet-based, highly functional communication principle. "Soros" has become one of the most important anti-Semitic memes on the net.

Anti-Semitism has always been personalized. In 1940, the Nazis made the propaganda films "The Rothschilds" and "Jud Süß" that worked that way. In order for the hatred of Jews to be caught, a diffuse Jewish threat must be conjured and concrete culprits named. Popular right-wing extremist conspiracy theories portray Soros as a Jewish conspirator wishing to destroy the "white people" by financing migration to Europe.

Thus, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic resentment can be combined, the "stupid, remote-controlled Muslims" and the "devious, stripping Jew". The faction leader of the FPÖ said that there were "strong rumors" that Soros was involved in "supporting migrant flows to Europe". What "sound rumors" should be, only the FPÖ knows, Adorno on the other hand knows: "Anti-Semitism is the rumor about the Jew."

George Soros became wealthy as a financial investor and made "liberal democracy" and "open society" the goal of his philanthropic activities. Because the foundations founded by him support the free press, he is suitable to rush at the same time against media and Jews. Soros forms the personalized intersection of "mainstream media" and "financial elite". Right-wing extremists, in particular, refer to free media and Jews.

Personalized, shortened capitalism criticism can function as a camouflage form of anti-Semitism, as a cross-front link between right and left anti-Semitism. It can also consist of not criticizing any one of the tens of thousands of non-Jewish investors or philanthropists, but of all things and mostly and exclusively: Jews. Or people of Jewish descent, like Soros.

Jews finance conflicts, profit from the war and sell weapons to both sides - even this anti-Semitic narrative is referred to Soros on the net. The "warmonger Soros" has become a standing, no longer questioned speech that can be applied to any outbreak of violence, from Ukraine to the Middle East conflict. And on both sides. Stephen Bannon said, "Soros is the devil, but brilliant." From a right-wing perspective, that's logical, because the devil is behind all evil. Trump adviser Rudolph Giuliani called Soros "the anti-Christian".

The Jew as a parasite, wandering around and "infecting" the populations of different countries. This age-old anti-Semitism is more relevant than ever in the net as well as right-wing and right-wing extremist power circles. The Austrian Vice-Chancellor Strache spoke dismissively of a "walking university" on the occasion of the expulsion of a University donated by Soros from Budapest to Vienna. This is exactly the motive of the "eternal Jew", who is also called "eternally wandering Jew".

Behind it stands an old Christian, anti-Semitic legend, according to which Jesus condemned a Jew to eternal wandering. The constantly "wandering, parasitic whole-country Jew" was the central, dehumanizing propaganda message of the Nazis. With this sacrificial pose they justified the industrially organized murder of the Jews as "self-defense", because those who are attacked by "parasites" are almost forced to fight back. This is how perpetrator-victim-reversal works.

Anti-Semites need no logic, no consistency, no plausibility. It is easily possible for them that Soros is behind all sides of a conflict, at the same time ardent Marxist and hypercapitalist speculator, as well as Jew and Nazi (which, among other things, assumed Donald Trump Junior).

To appeal to the widespread anti-Semitism in Hungary, right-wing extremist Victor Orbán has declared George Soros a public enemy in Hungary. That the anti-Semitic insinuations partly contradict themselves, is neither for Orbán nor for the anti-Semitic part of the public a problem.

Not even anti-Semites want to be anti-Semites after the Holocaust, hence Adorno's and Horkheimer's sentence, "But there are no anti-Semites left today." The essence of Soros anti-Semitism is being able to spread hatred of the Jews without being exposed as anti-Semitic.

This includes the constant complaint that they are no longer allowed to speak freely. In the net itself, it leads to the point of absurdity, because the social media overflows with hatred of Jews in general and Soros hatred in particular. The assertion that one can not criticize Soros, without immediately being labeled as anti-Semite, therefore fulfills a special function: it is to anticipate any criticism as unjustified.

Of course you can criticize George Soros. But at the latest, if one criticizes only George Soros of all available, dedicated billionaires in the world, one should ask oneself whether one has not sat down to an anti-Semitic motive. Not all who spread an anti-Semitic Soros meme on the net automatically become anti-Semitic themselves. But they all contribute to the anti-Semitic narrative about Soros in this way, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, whether they see it or not.

The inserted quotes are all from the font "The authors of the misfortune of the world" from January 21, 1945 by Joseph Goebbels.