On the Corner yesterday, Michael Brendan Dougherty noted that “Democrats have decided that all criticism of George Soros is coded antisemitism”: “There are ways of criticizing Soros that do play with antisemitic tropes,” Michael writes, “but noting his extraordinary intervention into American justice is not one of them.”
One thing I’d add is that there’s actually an easy way to test if left-wing allegations of antisemitism vis-à-vis Soros are made in good faith. The Right’s criticisms of Soros tend to revolve around the Hungarian-born billionaire’s support for left-wing causes. But the Right had its own Jewish billionaire donor: the late Sheldon Adelson. And the analogous criticisms of Adelson from progressives are rarely, if ever, subject to cries of antisemitism.
When Adelson bought a Nevada newspaper in 2015, Robert Reich wrote that “the purchase marks another step toward oligarchic control of America.” “Meet the shady billionaire that just backed Donald Trump,” Mic proclaimed in 2016. The left-leaning German publication DW profiled Adelson with a piece titled “Pulling the strings.” When the Jewish billionaire passed away in early 2021, the Nation ran an article titled, “Even in Death, Sheldon Adelson Will Keep Undermining Democracy.” (“Wherever the casino magnate went, corruption—be it moral, legal, political, or cultural—was never far behind,” the subtitle read.)
If the Left wants to argue that any criticisms of Jewish political donors are, by virtue of the donors’ being Jewish, antisemitic, they’re going to need to condemn the attacks on Adelson, too. I won’t hold my breath.