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ANTI-SEMITISM AND PRO-KREMLIN DISINFORMATION
EUvsDisinfo ^ | JANUARY 27, 2023 | Dr Jacob Wallis and Albert Zhang

Posted on 01/27/2023 3:17:28 AM PST by familyop

At the very end of 2022, the now exiled chief Rabbi of Moscow made a remarkable statement, urging Russian Jews to leave the country while still possible, before they are made scapegoats for the hardship caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Despite the Kremlin’s long standing efforts to portray Russia as the main force of resistance against Nazism, now and throughout history, pro-Kremlin media have routinely entertained anti-Semitic messaging. A lot of it originated in Russian nationalist conservative and religious circles. It was, if not supported, then tolerated by Russian authorities, and made its way into pro-Kremlin media.

EUvsDisinfo has collected multiple examples of anti-Semitic pro-Kremlin disinformation messages, including instances of Russian state-controlled TV openly engaging in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, airing the anti-Semitic statements of Russian politicians and pundits, and suggesting to drop the ‘Jew Taboo’.

Anti-Semitism camouflaged as conspiracy theories about individuals According to a 2020 study conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute, conspiratorial depictions of Jews are often camouflaged as conspiracy theories about specific individuals, for example about George Soros. This is a trend we have observed in pro-Kremlin media. The EUvsDisinfo database contains over 200 entries documenting disinformation claims that accuse George Soros of all sorts of malice – from controlling Ukrainian leaders to global human trafficking schemes.

Another recent example is a meme with distinctly anti-Semitic tones mocking President Zelenskyy of Ukraine that was shared by the official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in the UK. The American Jewish Committee condemned the meme, pointing out that it echoed ancient anti-Semitic propaganda by degrading Jews through fictional facial stereotypes.

But if in the past anti-Semitic messages were tolerated rather than initiated by Russian authorities as an effective propaganda component[i], the situation changed markedly following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to the exiled chief Rabbi of Moscow, governmental anti-Semitism is on the rise in Russia, complete with attempts to close the Jewish Agency. Meanwhile, rhetoric on Russian state-controlled TV channels reflects that pro-Kremlin pundits and officials are increasingly comfortable with anti-Semitism.

Holocaust distortion – a form of anti-Semitism One of the most egregious examples of anti-Semitic rhetoric came in May 2022, when Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said that Hitler had ‘Jewish blood’ and that ‘most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews’ in an apparent attempt to denigrate President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Although reportedly Putin later apologised for Lavrov’s claims, this was not an isolated or the last incident of anti-Semitic statements coming from Russia’s top diplomat.

In January 2023, at his annual news conference, Lavrov claimed that the West was waging a war against Russia with the task of imposing a ‘final solution to the Russian question’, thus drawing parallels between the crimes of Nazi Germany and international support for Ukraine, defending itself against Russian aggression.

When the statement drew a sharp rebuke internationally and from the EU, Russian state-controlled media, emboldened by Lavrov, added that six million Jews were exterminated by Europeans, led by Adolf Hitler.

Such statements distort and trivialise the Holocaust and are an expression of anti-Semitism.

The question is, why do pro-Kremlin pundits feel increasingly comfortable with it?

War propaganda opens the floodgates The distortion of the Holocaust is linked to a distortion of history in general, according to professor Yehuda Bauer, an honorary chairman of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The Kremlin has long used historical revisionism as a tool to generate legitimacy at home and frame its behaviour abroad. In this context the Kremlin has adamantly downplayed its alliance with Nazi Germany, casting the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a necessity which is now unjustly ‘demonised‘ in Europe.

It is only by denying its complicity in fuelling Nazi Germany’s war machine that enabled the Kremlin to propagate the ‘Nazis in Ukraine’ myth, which has been a cornerstone of the Kremlin’s propaganda since the Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014. The Kremlin sought to discredit pro-European protests in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine’s foreign policy labelling it as a ‘Nazi coup’. The EUvsDisinfo database contains nearly 500 examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation claims about ‘Nazi/Fascist Ukraine’.

The Kremlin’s attempts to justify the invasion of Ukraine by equating it the Nazi regime trivialise the memory of millions of victims of Nazism. According to historians from universities in Berlin and Munich, this narrative has also served as a ready-made excuse to escalate violence to World War II levels and lowered resistance to committing war crimes in Ukraine.

At the same time, the imperatives of war propaganda within Russia have erased any limits for what is acceptable on Russian TV. Combined with the nearly complete repression and expulsion of independent media and civil society, war propaganda has created an environment where anti-Semitic messages and conspiracy theories are not simply tolerated but condoned and almost expected.

Unwilling to acknowledge its own complicated past, the Kremlin continues to “manage” history, glossing over issues such as antisemitism in the past (see for example here) and therefore in the present.

[i] Research by the Network Contagion Research Institute has showed that Russian trolls have disseminated anti-Jewish conspiracy memes as a means to ‘connect’ and stir up anti-Semitism in extremist groups both on the left and the right of the political spectrum. In other words, anti-Semitic messages have a clear functional purpose.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Also interesting from EUvsDisinfo:

THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY’S INFORMATION OPERATIONS TO SHAPE INTERNATIONAL PERCEPTION OF ITS REGIME IN XINJIANG
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/the-chinese-communist-partys-information-operations-to-shape-international-perception-of-its-regime-in-xinjiang/

1 posted on 01/27/2023 3:17:28 AM PST by familyop
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To: familyop
Russian FM Lavrov's absurd comparison between Zelenskyy and Hitler - May 3, 2022

In his desperation to delegitimize the Ukrainian leader, he is resuscitating the long-discounted notion that Hitler was partially Jewish.

It is therefore hardly surprising that the latest conspiracy theory articulated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov focused on Zelenskyy. Speaking in Russian, the foreign minister claimed in an interview with Italian television on Sunday that just because Zelenskyy was Jewish didn’t mean he couldn’t lead a neo-Nazi regime. He went on to suggest that people should look to the “fact” that Hitler himself “had Jewish blood” and that “for some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/russia-ukraine-hitler-jewish-lavrov-zelenskyy-antisemitism-rcna27156

2 posted on 01/27/2023 3:30:08 AM PST by tlozo (Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees )
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To: familyop

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


3 posted on 01/27/2023 3:35:52 AM PST by Gratia
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To: familyop
The commander of the special forces "Akhmat" Apti Alaudinov announced the imminent completion of the encirclement of Artemovsk


4 posted on 01/27/2023 3:49:37 AM PST by JonPreston
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To: familyop

another attempt to defend George Soros and many like him.


5 posted on 01/27/2023 4:23:46 AM PST by euram (allALL)
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To: JonPreston

“Akhmat” Apti Alaudinov announced the imminent completion of the encirclement of Artemovsk”

ANOTHER “encirlement”!??

Do tell! I didnt know Ukraine had any troops left to “encircle” since they have been “encircled” about 10 times already. Its weird that everytime Ukraine is “encircled” it regains land.


6 posted on 01/27/2023 4:32:43 AM PST by FreshPrince
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To: JonPreston

Is this “Akhmat” one of those Holy Russiam Christian warriors?


7 posted on 01/27/2023 4:33:42 AM PST by FreshPrince
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To: FreshPrince
I didnt know Ukraine had any troops left

They'll have one more fat, bald guy when you decide to go to the front. When are you leaving?

8 posted on 01/27/2023 4:34:57 AM PST by JonPreston
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To: JonPreston

Little chunky, but lots more to love.

I have all my hair.

And its fabulous

Since you are rah rah on the invasion, Wagner could use you.


9 posted on 01/27/2023 5:14:48 AM PST by FreshPrince
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To: FreshPrince

I am a man of peace ☮️


10 posted on 01/27/2023 5:18:35 AM PST by JonPreston
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To: JonPreston

Yah,

as peaceful as those Orthodox priests who bless a missile called “Satan” LOL!


11 posted on 01/27/2023 6:11:38 AM PST by FreshPrince
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To: familyop

Speculating whether Hitler had Nazi blood or whether Ukraine is full of Nazis is just irrelevant blather, what isn’t irrelevant though is that almost all the architects responsible for the takeover of Ukraine, both on the American side and the Ukrainian side are Jewish Zionists.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman
Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines
Director of the CIA David Cohen
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients (formally Ron Klain)
As well as every politician that has come to power in Ukraine since the US fomented coup in 2014.

So is this just another one of those coincidences Dave Chappelle says we’re not suppose to notice? Well I’m sure the Russians have noticed, and probably more than a few Ukrainians as well.


12 posted on 01/27/2023 7:25:49 AM PST by jimwatx
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To: jimwatx

and Blackrock, Morgan Stanley et al.


13 posted on 01/27/2023 7:35:56 AM PST by 2right
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To: jimwatx

International Jews have successfully orchestrated the takeover of Ukraine?

Is that why the Russians had to invade?


14 posted on 01/27/2023 9:49:26 AM PST by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: ansel12

Not just “International Jews” as you call them, there’s plenty of Anglo elites in cahoots with this project as well, it is however Zionist Jews who seem to be at the forefront of pushing it. There are obviously many other groups seeking benefit, the arms industry, globalists, multinational corps hoping to pick up rebuilding contracts, ect, but Jewish Oligarchs like Kolomoisky, Soros and the like especially have themselves mixed up in this. Then we have so many prominent Jews in the US government who have been eager to set this foreign policy in motion, you can’t help but notice.

Victoria Nuland talks to US Ambassador to Ukraine about installing Yatsenyuk to head Ukraine after the 2014 coup. (All 3 of them of Jewish ancestry).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoW75J5bnnE

So taking all of these facts into account, it’s probably not surprising that the Russians themselves have noticed the peculiarly high % of those of Jewish ethnicity involved and have indulged in anti-Semitic speculation. And after this war is through, don’t be surprised to see it arise in Ukraine too. They will wind up holding Zelensky responsible for getting them into this mess because he ran on the political platform of negotiating a peace treaty with Russia, but did a complete 180 after getting elected. Just wait and see.


15 posted on 01/27/2023 10:50:21 AM PST by jimwatx
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To: jimwatx

“”Not just “International Jews” as you call them””

I don’t use the term for myself, but it seemed that you were describing some sort of international coalition of foreign Jews plotting together to take Ukraine and starting this war to accomplish it.

What do the world’s Jews want from it?


16 posted on 01/27/2023 11:33:32 AM PST by ansel12 (NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.)
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To: ansel12

“What do the world’s Jews want from it?”
******************************************

I wouldn’t say it’s the Jews as a people per se, more like the oligarchs, billionaires, and some very high level Zionist types advising Biden’s foreign policy. What their particular interest in this would be I don’t know, I was just wondering myself. Just seems odd to me why so many of them seem to be pushing this for whatever reason.


17 posted on 01/27/2023 11:48:09 AM PST by jimwatx
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To: ansel12

The canard about Jewish people conspiring to control the world came from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Jewish text originally published in Russia.

You and I know that George Soros has supported libertine Democrat political efforts (bad enough), but that he is not a Nazi or communist. He, like many other soft socialists (as differentiated from hard socialists), fears communism and Nazism.

But neo-Nazi-leaning conspiracy theorists feel compelled to believe in vast, all encompassing conspiracies. They do so as if they have “hooks in” their “jaws” (Ezekiel). With their dishonesty, they try to drive Republicans away from the polls and foment anarchy and chaos. Anarchists paved the way for communists in Europe, by the way.


18 posted on 01/27/2023 2:16:51 PM PST by familyop ("For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas" (John Webster, "The White Devil" 1612).)
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