There’s No Business Like Antisemitism Business

Bigotry pays!( UPDATED)

Reading some online responses after the rescue of the FlyDubai flight from a near-disaster by a courageous Indian pilot and Israeli passengers, it struck me that antisemitism has turned into a kind of business and has been that way for some time.

Bigotry pays—in some cases, big time.

CAM’s (Combat Antisemitism Movement) immediate report on September 30 illustrates the extent and immediacy of this bigotry business:

FlyDubai flight on Wednesday, antisemitic conspiracy theories were already spreading online claiming the incident was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by Israel.

The first X post making such an assertion was recorded by CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) at 2:28 ET, just 67 minutes after the plane sent its first emergency distress signal.

Within five hours, the ARC documented 1,000 hostile posts, and over the full 12-hour monitoring period a total of 2,963 posts were identified attributing the incident to Israel, the Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zionists, or Jews.

The posts generated at least 30,000 likes and three million views.

That’s a lot of propaganda, but also a lot of money because, as we all know, clicks equal money, either in the short term or the long term, often both.

I asked ChatGPT who the first scandalmongers were out of the barn and got a not-very-surprising response: Nick Fuentes, Jackson Hinkle, Sneako, Ana Kasparian, and the man with the X handle “Power to the People,” actually a former Hillary Clinton Democrat turned socialist, Ryan Knight. Knight wrote: “The false flags are way too easy to spot.”

And then, of course, there is Hasan Piker, living the millionaire’s life in LA, about whom we have heard a lot lately. I will get back to him.

Not much need be said of Fuentes either, who has been minting money off antisemitism and other accusations for some time with his inflammatory statements that generate subscriptions. He jumped in immediately on the AirDubai story by calling the heroism “false flag terrorism” on his Rumble account.

Jackson Hinkle—who formed the American Communist Party in 2024, calls himself a MAGA communist, living out the horseshoe theory, and is strongly pro-Russian, not to mention pro-Hamas and Hezbollah—posted that the event was obviously orchestrated by Netanyahu and was “All too predictable.”

Sneako—real name Nicolas Kenn De Balinhazy— is great pals with Fuentes and appears with him frequently. He identifies with the “Manosphere” and converted to Islam in 2023. On his livestream, he said of the FlyDubai rescue, “looking like a psyop so far.”

Needless to say, none of these people provided the slightest evidence for their accusations. But no matter, they are playing to a hopefully expanding audience, raking in those subscriptions. Facts would restrict them.

Ana Kasparian, however, played it a little closer to the vest. She abjured the “false flag” accusations and just called what happened “fishy. Super fishy.” Maybe that’s because Ana looks more like a conventional media person and once was one for CBS. On the other hand, she is the longtime co-host of Cenk Uygur, who specializes in anti-Israel outrage, on The Young Turks.

Although Cenk Uygur’s nephew Hasan Piker is very much in the public eye these days, a friend and adviser of Senate candidate El-Sayed, and so forth, he did not hesitate to characterize the attempted hijacking as a “Red Herring” and a conspiracy theory on his immensely popular livestream.

Does this sound familiar? It should be, because the above-referenced people are far from the first who made financial killings either from antisemitism or from exploiting it. In recent years, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and (sometimes) Megyn Kelly come immediately to mind. Antisemitism for them is a goldmine to be mined and mined. Whether they believe what they are saying, or the extent to which they do, is immaterial. The results are the same. The more outrageous the statement, the better. Contradictions, which appear almost daily, are also of no import. Nobody could possibly remember, including themselves.

To what extent their views have been bought and paid for is not yet known, but Qatar and others have bought vast sectors of our society; the people above would have been the easiest marks. All they had to do was spout off. They could have easily convinced themselves they were doing the right thing and taken the money. Being well paid for what you already think you believe or kind of semi-believe only enhances that belief. In fact, it validates and increases it to an amazing extent. It turns bigotry into a self-righteous cause.

And so it goes on and on. The seemingly outrageous social media statements of these people influence, in more modified, polite forms, many, including a large proportion of our Democratic Party, some in our Republican Party, and an even larger percentage of Western European leaders, where antisemitism has been big business for centuries.

Meanwhile, to the heroes of FlyDubai, heartiest congratulations and gratitude. Decent humanity is humbled by what you have done. Am Israel Chai.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning author, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, and journalist. His most recent novel, EMET, is now also available in an audio edition. On X and Truth Social, he is @realrogerlsimon.