Within hours after a gunman who according to CNN told police, “I just want to kill Jews,” opened fire in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, synagogue during a Saturday prayer service, killing 11 people, Fox Business News host Lou Hobbs aired a segment that appeared to endorse one of the same anti-Semitic conspiracy theories espoused by the accused synagogue mass killer on his social media accounts.
The Dobbs segment was a rerun of one he aired two days earlier, in which the 73-year-old longtime Fox host interviewed Chris Farrell, of the right-wing group Judicial Watch, in which the two discussed a migrant caravan from Central America that Donald Trump has attempted to make a major issue leading up to the November 6 midterm elections, as Politico has noted.
In the segment, first noticed by Josh Marshall, editor of the political site Talking Points Memo, Farrell with Dobbs seeming approval, claimed the migrant caravan was by organized and funded by the “Soros-occupied State Depertment,” reference to billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who is Jewish, and who has donated to many liberal causes and candidates.
The claim the Soros is at the center of a left-wing conspiracy is common among Republicans and right-wing groups such as Judicial Watch, but as The Washington Post has explained, conspiracy theories about Soros appear in fact to serve as substitutes for conspiracy theories about Jewish people in general.
Straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Just moments ago, Lou Dobbs guest Chris Farrell (head of Judicial Watch) says Caravan is being funded/directed by the "Soros-occupied State Department". pic.twitter.com/QBSong7uk1
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 27, 2018
As Marshall noted, Farrell’s phrase “Soros-occupied State Department” closely mirrors the term “Zionist Occupation Government,” a term popular among right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis who believe that Jews secretly control the United States government, as the Anti-Defamation League explains. The Soros conspiracy theories, such as the one stated by Farrell on Hobbs’ broadcast, also closely parallel extreme, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
“His name has become a synonym for a well-worn anti-Semitic canard: the idea that Jews are malevolent fomenters of social dissent, agitators slyly funding and masterminding protest, seeking to undermine a white, Christian social order,” wrote Post columnist Talia Lavin.
In fact, other Fox segments had earlier endorsed the same claim about secret funding of the caravan — and Donald Trump has also stated a conspiracy theory that “Democrats” are secretly financing the caravan, as The Post has noted.
In reality, the migrants in the so-called “caravan” are largely from Honduras and are fleeing rampant political and gang violence in that country, as well as economic conditions under which many Hondurans must support their families on only $5 per day, according to an analysis by Vox.
Robert Bowers, 46, who has been charged in the Pittsburgh shooting, made posts on his social media accounts expressing his belief that the migrant caravan was being funded and organized as part of a “Jewish” conspiracy to commit “genocide” against white Americans, as Slate reported.
The Fox segment on Dobbs’ program originally aired Thursday, three days after a bomb was found at the Soros’s home in upstate New York. Florida man and registered Republican Cesar Sayoc, as the Inquisitr reported, is suspected of sending that bomb and 13 others to prominent Democrats. Saywas also reportedrts to be “obsessed with George Soros, conspiracy theories,” according to The Washington Times.