You’ll Never Guess What the Right Is Blaming George Soros for Now
The New York Post found a way to peg the nationwide, pro-Palestine student protests on billionaire investor and hedge fund manager George Soros on Friday, once again reviving the right’s favorite antisemitic conspiracy theory.
The publication tied the overarching group organizing the campus-based protests, Students for Justice in Palestine, to some nonprofits funded in part by Soros. Those include the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which received funding from Open Society Foundations, which was founded by Soros.
“The cash from Soros and his acolytes has been critical to the Columbia protests that set off the national copycat demonstrations. Three groups set up the tent city on Columbia’s lawn last Wednesday: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Within Our Lifetime,” wrote the Post, taking aim at purchases of tents, pizza, coffee, rotisserie chickens, “organic tortilla chips,” and sandwiches, allegedly paid for by groups tied to Soros.
“An analysis by The Post shows that all three got cash from groups linked to Soros. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund also gave cash to JVP,” the publication wrote.
But the complicated, antisemitic trope forgoes the reality that American opinion has aggressively soured on Israel’s war in Gaza since it began. A poll conducted by Gallup in March revealed that just 36 percent of Americans approved of the military action Israel has taken in Gaza—down from 50 percent in November. According to the poll, Republicans are practically the only demographic still holding on to U.S. support for the war, which some U.S. lawmakers have decried as “genocide.”
Don’t be surprised if the “it’s all Soros” trope quickly picks up among others on the right. Conservative leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson have flown up to Columbia University to stoke the flames of an otherwise peaceful encampment of students who pay more than $68,000 per year in tuition to utilize the grounds, warning individuals practicing their First Amendment rights that he may call upon the National Guard to break them up. That violent call came after the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, authorized the New York City Police Department to sweep and arrest protesting students on school grounds, and after the school’s sister institution Barnard suspended and evicted at least 53 students participating in the encampment.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 77,000 Palestinians injured in the conflict, according to data from the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has advanced its attacks on the beleaguered nation by engaging in what the U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk has described as war crimes, including blocking humanitarian aid from reaching those who need it. Israel has also utilized mass starvation, as well as blocking or destroying access to critical resources such as water, food, fuel, electricity, and medical aid.
“Open Society has funded a broad spectrum of US groups that have advocated for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and for peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel and the OPT,” the group said in a statement provided to the Post. “The Open Society Foundations proudly support the right of all citizens to peaceful protest—a bedrock principle of our democracy.”