A Conspiracy Filled Manifesto by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the Covid-19 virus was designed to save Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese people has led to accusations of anti-Semitism and racism in the long run of the Democratic presidential candidate.
“Covid-19[feminineThereisanargumentthathasasanethnictargetCovid-19attackscertainracesinadisproportionateway”saidKennedyinaprivatemeetinginNewYorkthatwascaptured[feminineHihaunargumentquetécomaobjectiuètnicElCovid-19atacacertesracesdemaneradesproporcionada”vadirKennedyenunareunióprivadaaNovaYorkquevasercapturadaon videotape from The New York Post. “Covid-19 is targeted at Caucasians and blacks. The most immune people are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Mr. Kennedy has built his political career on false conspiracy theories not only about Covid-19 and Covid vaccines, but also about the disproved links between common childhood vaccines and autism, mass surveillance and 5G mobile phone technology, the health effects of Wi-Fi and a ‘theft’. ” 2004 election that returned the presidency to George W. Bush.
But his suggestion that the coronavirus pandemic saved the Chinese and Jews of European descent veered into new and bigoted territory.
Asian Americans suffered a brutal onslaught at the start of the Covid pandemic from people who blamed the Chinese for intentionally releasing the virus into the world. And the comments of Mr. Kennedy on Ashkenazi Jews struck anti-Semitic troops on multiple levels.
Ashkenazi Jews are generally descended from those who settled in Eastern Europe after the Roman Empire destroyed the Jewish state around 70 AD. Sephardic Jews went to the Middle East, North Africa and Spain.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are somehow separate from Caucasians has fueled deadly bigotry for centuries, and the conspiracy of Jewish immunity to tragedy has been part of anti-Semitic attacks since the Black Death and as recently as the September 11 terrorists. 2001
Abraham Foxman, who served for decades as head of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, condemned “anti-Semitic stereotypes dating back to the Middle Ages that claimed Jews protected themselves from disease.”
“It can’t be ignorance because it’s not ignorant, so it has to be believed,” said Mr. Foxman Saturday night.
Mr. Kennedy responded to the New York Post story with a defense that only deepened his conspiracy theories. He wrote on Twitter that he “accurately pointed out” that the U.S. is “developing ethnically targeted bioweapons,” a point he made in his comments caught on video, when he repeated Russian propaganda that the U.S. is collecting DNA in Ukraine to target them. Russians with custom bioweapons.
Mr Kennedy also linked to a scientific paper which he said showed that the structure of the Covid-19 virus made blacks and Caucasians more susceptible, and that “ethnic Chinese, Finns and Ashkenazi Jews ” were less receptive.
But the study he linked to, published July 2020, early in the pandemic and before effective treatments had emerged, made no reference to the Chinese being more susceptible to the virus, nor did he talk about targeting the virus. He said a particular receptor for the virus did not appear to be present in Amish and Ashkenazi Jews.
His conclusions were roundly dismissed by scientists.
“Jewish or Chinese protease consensus sequences are not a thing in biochemistry, but they are in racism and anti-Semitism.” said Angela Rasmussenvirologist at the University of Saskatchewan.
Mr. Kennedy returned to Twitter shortly after midnight on Sunday to call the anti-Semitism charges against him a “disgusting fabrication.”
“I understand the emotional pain these inaccurate distortions and fabrications have caused many Jews who remember the blood libels of poison pits and the deliberate spread of disease as a pretext for genocidal programs against their ancestors,” he wrote in a lengthy publication “My father and my uncles, John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy, devoted enormous political energy during their careers to supporting Israel and fighting anti-Semitism. I intend to spend my political career making these family causes my priority.”
The comments of Mr. Kennedy is not the first time he approaches the intersection of Judaism and Covid. In his zeal to condemn the measures to slow the spread of the virus, he spoke last year in an anti-vaccination mandate rally in Washington, saying: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” suggesting that the Covid restrictions were worse.
Even his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, condemned the comment about Anne Frank.
“My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in DC was reprehensible and insensitive,” she wrote on Twitter.
The anger of Jewish leaders over his comments on Covid was immediate.
The Anti-Defamation League wrote: “The claim that Covid-19 was a biological weapon created by the Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and Blacks is deeply offensive and feeds into the Sinophobic and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Covid-19 that we’ve seen it evolve over the last three years.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-NJ, wrote on Twitter: “RFK Jr. is a disgrace to the Kennedy name and the Democratic Party. For the record, my entire Jewish family had Covid.”
