Health experts and Jewish civil rights teams condemn presidential candidate’s latest baseless statements
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Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr. has reignited an anti-Semitic plot blaming Jews for the rise of Covid-19, a claim that follows a series of offensive statements and lies raised by the longtime US presidential candidate.
At a press conference in New York on July 11, Mr. Kennedy claimed that “it can be argued” that the disease has an “ethnic objective. “
“Covid-19 is aimed at attacking Caucasians and blacks. The other most immune people are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he said, according to a video of the event from the New York Post. “We don’t know if he targeted intentionally or not, however, there is documentation that shows the differential and the racial or ethnic impact. “
His comments on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that circulated early in the pandemic and other statements through the candidate that raise false conspiracy theories around Covid-19 and the vaccines that fueled his campaign.
“The claim that covid-19 was a biological weapon created by Chinese or Jews to attack Caucasians and blacks is deeply offensive and fuels Sinophobic and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” according to a member of the Anti-Defamation League.
“Layer upon layer of anti-Semitism,” wrote Jonathan Weisman of (((Semitism)): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump.
“If you still believe there is a left-handed or even non-crazy case to please RFK Jr. , then you have been duped or deceived,” MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wrote. “A racist, conspiratorial and harmful madness.
“We have nothing for this man’s madness,” wrote the U. S. nonprofit watchdog Stop Antisemitism.
Kennedy responded to the report Saturday morning, and a spokesman for the crusade told The Independent that the Post “got it wrong. “
“I never, ever advised that the Covid-19 virus was aimed at saving Jews,” M. Kennedy on Twitter before echoing his claim that the United States and other governments are “developing ethnically directed biological weapons. “
He pointed to a 2020 study from the National Institutes of Health that concluded the effects of the disease are disproportionately felt among blacks and others with cardiovascular and lung disease, cancer and other risk factors.
“In that sense, it serves as a kind of evidence of concept for ethnically directed biological weapons,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I do not want or have implied that the ethnic effect was intentionally designed. “
Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, an insurrectionary effort for the Democratic nomination pushed through the right-wing media to appeal to Democratic voters, portrayed a dark and conspiratorial worldview that amplifies discredited and misleading claims and outright lies.
Earlier this year, the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (U. S. )The U. S. government rejected her suggestion that life is worse for other people today than it is for Anne Frank.
“Making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, for a political calendar is outrageous and deeply offensive,” the organization said. the consequences of hatred. “
Mr. Kennedy and his organization Children’s Health Defense also promoted James Corbett, a prominent conspiracy theorist who claimed that “Hitler to Rothschild” and “Hitler and the Nazis were one hundred percent absolutely and absolutely implemented” through the “foreign banking community. “foreign capitalist friends.
His relationship with Corbett joins a long list of partnerships and appearances on right-wing media platforms with far-right pundits.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr.
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