There are some disputes that bring with them, more heated temperatures than light and one was the business dispute between Elon Musk and Jewish philanthropist George Soros, who fell out after the latter got rid of his stocks in one of Musk's companies, bringing its value down.
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Musk was enraged and came after Soros for being Jewish. But he was not explicit in his tweet. He called him a 'dirty Jew' by implication only. Musk compared Soros to Magneto, the villain from the X-Men comic series, who happens to be a Holocaust survivor – like Soros himself, and who possesses the power to control the world.
Although Musk did not directly refer to Soros being Jewish, by using that comparison, he attributed traits that were used by anti-Semites in their conspiracy theories, ranging from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion all the way to the Nazi Der Stürmer.
Musk can deny he is an antiSemite but his intent was clear, as the spike in the word "Jews" on the list of trending subjects on Twitter, attests.
This style of discourse is spreading. Blatant antisemitism is still rejected but the number of attacks and anti-Jewish slander rises annually. Antisemites use innuendo rather than direct attacks. But what should the response be?
Head of Digital Diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry, David Saranga said after the Musk tweet, that if a comment is vague or can have a double meaning but prompts explicit antisemitic responses – it is antisemitic. Antisemites are quick to detect hidden messages.
But things get complicated further when the Israeli right-wing attack dogs reacted with their Pavlovian response and turned on Saranga, because his comments related to Soros who is seen as a progressive and is the enemy of their beloved Hungarian leader Viktor Orban.
The principle question is how to react to the current forms of antisemitic discourse, that rather than use obvious hostility includes insinuated vilification.
Even a perceptive man like Alan Dershowitz got it wrong in his recent Wall Street Journal article. Musk did not condemn Soros over his positions on Israel (Which should be condemned) he rather attacked him as a Jew and Dershowitz should have known the difference.
There is clearly visible connection between Zionism and antisemitism. As early as the time of Herzl, the Zionist movement had antisemitic allies and supporters. Friedrich I, Grand Duke of Baden who organized Herzl's meeting with Kaiser Wilhelm was a declared antisemite. Cooperation between Zionists and anti-Semites, including the Nazis, continued during the first half of the 20th century and the most notable among them, was the agreement between the Jewish Agency and the Nazi government to allow Jews to leave for Palestine with their belongings, in exchange for a payment.
It is not difficult to identify the origins of this connection; Atisemites and Zionists shared a disdain for the diaspora Jews and their lifestyles.
It seems the admiration for Musk, and the growing affinity between the right-wing government and those expressing antisemitic views as Orban has done is a continuation of that historic trend. But despite that affinity, there is a distinct difference between antisemitism and Zionism. Zionists want to redeem the Jewish diaspora and antisemites want to annihilate it.
The right wing in Israel must be careful not to cross this line and attach themselves to the antisemites more than to Zionists.