BuzzFeed is not having a good week.
The cat listicle website is under attack for its fake story about Trump and Cohen. And then it decided to double down on those false claims while running a crazy story claiming that Jews had conspired to smear George Soros.
Now Hannes Grassegger’s nutty rant isn’t just the usual media whitewashing of Soros. Lately the media has decided that the only anti-Semitism it will recognize is criticism of George Soros.
But Hannes Grassegger goes well beyond that with an insane claim. The claim is that negative portrayals of Soros began in 2008 with some sort of conspiracy involving Netanyahu, Jewish campaign consultants and Viktor Orban.
Forget everything else.
Soros was a despised figure among Jews and non-Jews long before 2008. He had personally declared war on George W. Bush. He had accused Jews of being responsible for anti-Semitism. He was being condemned by the ADL and Elie Wiesel.
So there’s a Jewish anti-Semitic conspiracy against Soros.
Hannes Grassegger makes bizarre claims that have nothing to do with reality.
When elections for his successor were hastily arranged, a newcomer threw his hat into the ring. Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-wing former corporate consultant, was given no chance. He was running against Shimon Peres, a legendary figure, a Social Democrat from the founding generation of Israel who wanted to continue Rabin’s peace process, which most people hoped would succeed.
Israelis initially sneered at Netanyahu’s ambitions, and polls put him 20% behind. But seemingly out of nowhere, Netanyahu’s Likud party started carpeting the country with sinister ads. “Peres will divide Jerusalem” went the slogan, even though Peres had no such intention.
Peres did indeed want to divide Jerusalem. Such a division has long since been a basic part of any peace plan.
Netanyahu had been a successful public figure and a hero. Calling him a “former corporate consultant” leaves out everything that matters.
Peres was widely despised by Israelis and had been caught up in a corruption scandal. Israeli election polls are routinely weighed toward the left and are meaningless.
This is very basic stuff. But BuzzFeed would rather run silly conspiracy theories without any regard for the facts.
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