Billionaire’s agenda: Silencing anti-Zionism

A “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah” at New York University (NYU). Photo: National Students for Justice in Palestine

At first glance, the phrases “Stand Up to Hate” and “Combat Anti-Semitism” seem innocuous enough. After all, who wants to be known as a hateful bigot or a virulent anti-Semite? Outside of a select realm of Nazis and fascists, those who are proudly hateful anti-Semites rank few in the large masses of the working class. 

These two phrases are at the center of billionaire Robert Kraft’s non-profit, the Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism, and its various media campaigns. If only this foundation were actually committed to fighting anti-Semitism or racist hate. In reality, Kraft’s nonprofit and its campaign have nothing to do with ethnic or racial hatred. The Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism is, in reality, the foundation to combat anti-Zionism. 

To be clear, anti-Semitism is certainly a problem in the United States. Neo-Nazi organizing continues to grow. The Jewish community faces dozens of anti-Semitic hate crimes a year that have nothing to do with Israel but simply are based in anti-Jewish bigotry. Further, anti-Semitic rhetoric continues to ring from the highest levels of the U.S. political class

Robert Kraft is not concerned with those forms of anti-Semitism. Actually, Robert Kraft is not concerned with anti-Semitism at all. He is simply concerned with profits and the protection of his investments in the Zionist entity, which include various athletic facilities and “entrepreneurship” funds.

Kraft founded the so-called Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism in 2019 with a $20 million grant. So, did Kraft establish this organization in response to the neo-Nazi march on Charlottesville, the mass shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue, or the murder of gay Jewish teenager Blase Bernstein? No, he did not. 

At a private event in 2019 in “Jerusalem,” Kraft discussed his plan to build his foundation. Kraft boldly announced at this event that his $20 million foundation would be aimed at combating the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement and any other “delegitimization of Israel.” 

At the time, Kraft had already funded and led 27 missions to the Zionist entity. That number has only skyrocketed since. The Foundation’s opening propaganda salvo involved a team-up with two rappers, both Black men: Meek Mill and Jay-Z. 

Outside of collaborating with those two rappers, the Foundation was pretty quiet in its first few years. In 2022, it launched its first major “Stand up to Jewish Hate” during the Super Bowl, which draws tens of millions of viewers worldwide every year.

According to Kraft, he was driven to fund this ad campaign in the wake of anti-Semitic statements from two Black men, Kyrie Irving and Kanye West. For Kraft and the Foundation, the statements of these two Black celebrities were clear indicators that anti-Semitism in the United States had risen to an unacceptable level. 

Were the synagogue mass shootings and neo-Nazi torch marches not clear enough indicators that anti-Semitism was surging? Kraft only seems to care when Black or Brown people are allegedly anti-Semitic. 

This messaging plays into a common misconception that the Black community is somehow inherently more anti-Semitic than other communities. This is a strange notion considering that even according to the Zionist “Anti-Defamation League,” the vast majority of anti-Semitic hate crimes are perpetrated at the hands of neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations. Regardless, even this racist messaging was a smokescreen for Kraft’s real motivation in his Foundation: to break the BDS movement. 

In the years since its founding, the Foundation has pumped millions of dollars into studies and media campaigns that assert anti-Semitisim includes criticism of Israel. This included an October 2023 report that categorized as anti-Semitic any comparisons between Gaza and Auschwitz and Jewish students building “Sukkahs” in solidarity with Gaza. That’s right, building shelters for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot in solidarity with the homeless of Gaza is somehow anti-Semitic. 

The bodies of 11 Jews lying in pools of blood in Pittsburgh weren’t enough to push Kraft to action, but Jewish students standing in solidarity with Palestine were. As a part of this attack on the anti-Zionist and BDS movements, Kraft announced in April of this year that he was pulling all of his financial support from Columbia University because of pro-Palestine protests. 

 

Comparisons between fascist “Israel” and Nazi Germany are not anti-Semitic. Jewish students who stand in solidarity with Palestine are not anti-Semitic. Boycotts of corporations that fund the genocide of Palestine are not anti-Semitic. 

 

Robert Kraft is not a friend of the Jewish community or any community that suffers from apartheid, racist hatred, or class oppression. He is a right-wing billionaire who inherited his fortune from his father-in-law and long prided himself in his friendship with Donald Trump. 

Don’t be fooled by Kraft and his Foundation’s smooth talk and expensively produced television advertisements. He is just another racist Zionist billionaire. 

Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.


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