Iranian & American anti-semites cooperate to explain how the Jews were to blame for the Newtown massacre

It was only a matter of time before some people found ways to blame the Jews (and/or "Zionists") for the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.  One especially illuminating analysis along these lines was relayed to the world by the official Iranian TV network, PressTV, which summed up its report as follows:

A prominent Phoenix-based analyst tells Press TV that the Israelis and their media like Hollywood are behind most of the violent incidents happening within the United States namely the recent deadly New Town school shooting incident.

Note that the analysis offered here is not simple or superficial, but complex, multi-layered, and sociologically rich.  The role of the Jews in this incident and others like it is not merely direct (in a manner reminiscent of the mythical involvement by Israeli Mossad agents in bringing down the World Trade Center on 9/11) but also indirect—through the effects of the Jewish-controlled media on American culture, for example, or the Jewish gun control plot "to take guns away from normal law abiding middleclass Americans," leaving them helpless to defend themselves, not to mention Jewish control of US foreign policy, and so on (transcript here).  In case this version of the story was too subtle, PressTV also ran two other pieces titled, more straightforwardly, "Israeli death squads involved in Sandy Hook bloodbath" & "Mossad death squads slaughtered American children at Sandy Hook".

The "prominent Phoenix-based analyst" interviewed by PressTV, Mike Harris, is someone I've never heard of.  In a country the size of the US there are a lot of nuts, and the internet is full of crazy websites peddling lunatic conspiracy theories of all varieties, so why give this one even a moment's attention?  I think that in this case there are at least three reasons for paying a little attention.

First, this brief discourse by Mike Harris offers a usefully informative compendium of some major themes that run through a wide range of Jewish-world-conspiracy theories on both the far right and the far left (on certain topics, it's not always easy to tell the difference between the two).  If you've ever wondered how we Jews manage to do so much damage and keep it under the radar, Harris lays out a cogent and comprehensive explanation that ties a lot of apparently unrelated elements together (as paranoid delusions often do).

Second, Harris was given a platform, and his anti-semitic ravings were endorsed and broadcast to the world, by the official TV service of the Iranian regime.  There are some people who continue to deny, in the face of all the evidence, that the current Iranian regime is pervasively and systematically anti-semitic (not just 'critical of Israeli policies' or 'pro-Palestinian').  For such people, this very typical example of pseudo-journalistic propaganda from PressTV might serve as one more small reality check.

The third point is related to the second.  In the US, paranoid anti-semitic ravings like those of Mike Harris and his colleagues are culturally and politically marginal (though more genteel echoes of some of their themes can occasionally be found in more mainstream discourse).  In some other parts of the world, however, lunatic anti-semitic conspiracy theories of this sort are not just respectable, but mainstream.  It's worth being reminded of that.

=>  For a slightly fleshed-out account of this affair, which usefully outlines the main elements of Mike Harris's analysis, see the piece below from Britain's CST blog.  (Norman Geras also highlights a piece on this subject by Max Fisher at the Washington Post.)

Yours for reality-based discourse,
Jeff Weintraub

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CST blog
December 19, 2012
Iranian & American antisemites unite: British anti-Zionists on stand-by
By Mark Gardner

Iranian state broadcaster, Press TV, has excitedly blamed the dreadful Connecticut school shooting upon Israel, Zionists and Jews. It is quoting Mike Harris, financial editor of the American website, Veterans Today:

And I want you to look at this in a greater context of things. We have had a Zionist-controlled Hollywood, a Zionist-controlled news media that is the conduit to all of these violence ... into every home in America and so you wonder why there is a culture of violence? It is because it comes from the Jews in Hollywood. That is where the conduit of violence comes from. That is the source of it.

Not content with indirectly blaming Zionist / Jewish control of American media , Harris directly blames Israel (and throws in the old Israel / Jews kill children routine for antisemitic measure):

But look behind that even deeper, I want to remind you of the Norway shooting of Mr. Breivik, which followed a week after Norway had agreed to support Palestine. Now you look at Israel just lost their bid to thwart Palestine from being recognized by the United Nations and now here we go, here is a revenge killing in the US, sponsored by Israel, that killed all these innocent children and that is something that Israelis do very, very well. They target the innocent, they target the children ...

Of course, no self-respecting ‘anti-Zionist’ or antisemite would neglect to trot out the ‘Jewish money controls Congress’ charge:

So let us connect the dots here about what is going on globally, geopolitically with Israel involved. Now they are also calling for a Congressional hearing. Now one thing you can count on with a Congressional hearing is there is going to be a cover up because all the Congressmen are bought and paid for by the Israeli Lobby in the US.

So any truth of this is going to be hidden because Israel wants it hidden,because they are once again the guilty party.

Israeli death squads are then joined, seamlessly, by Jewish-controlled filth:

You have to realize Israel has been operating death squads in the United States since Gabrielle Giffords and Judge Roll were shot in Tuscan. There has been other incidents as the Colorado shooting, that was again Israeli death squads operating in the US ...

... I watched the filth that Hollywood produces. The filth that comes out of Hollywood. Hollywood is Jewish-owned and Jewish-controlled and they spew filth and they spew violence out.

The Jewish end-game? Why, to further control America of course:

... taking guns away from law abiding Americans is pointless. The culture as we are talking about here is Jewish-inspired, comes out of Hollywood, comes out of the Jewish-controlled news media. It comes out ..., our congress is bought and paid for. Look at who the major donors are!

70 percent of the money comes out of corporations that are Zionist Jewish-controlled. Let us put credit where credit is due and this goes squarely on the Jewish lobby and let us look at our control who want to take the guns, [Dianne] Feinstein, [Charles] Schumer,[Barbara] Boxer; those are all the ones; those are all Jewish senators, all Jewish people who want to take guns away from normal law abiding middleclass Americans, who have a right under this constitution to do it.

They have been trying to destroy this country and trying to destroy this constitution for the last 70 years....

We are not going to sit back and take this Zionist-occupied government that we have in this country anymore.... We have had a Zionist-controlled Hollywood, a Zionist-controlled news media, that is the conduit to all of these violence.... It is because it comes from the Jews in Hollywood. That is where the conduit of violence comes from. That is the source of it.

This talk of Zionist-occupied government and Jewish gun control is highly reminiscent of The Turner Diaries – the infamous American neo-Nazi guide to Race War that helped inspire the truck bombing of the Alfred Murrah building in Oklahoma in 1995, which murdered over 160 people. The book takes the “mass Gun Raids” under “the Cohen Act” as its starting point for a fantasy white revolutionary overthrow of the United States. This is its take on what must be done with the Jews:

If the White nations of the world had not allowed themselves to become subject to the Jew, to Jewish ideas, to the Jewish spirit, this war would not be necessary. We can hardly consider ourselves blameless. We can hardly say we had no choice, no chance to avoid the Jew’s snare. We can hardly say we were not warned....

The people had finally had their fill of the Jews and their tricks.... If the [revolutionary] Organization survives this contest, no Jew will — anywhere. We’ll go to the Uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan’s spawn.

Meanwhile, back at the Veterans Today website, you can see some regular contributors who are better known for their work within British anti-Israel and leftist circles, than they are for attracting  fleas from crazy American neo-Nazis, survivalists, conspiracy nuts etc. Step forward, Gilad Atzmon and Alan Hart. In Hart’s case, he actually has an article on the school shootings. This avoids antisemitism, but attracts some rabidly antisemitic comments, including the first one:

You need a strong German who no longer cow tows to the jews. One who will take charge and eliminate their control over the press, media, banks and every policy and law that affects the population. A leader with strong ties and allegiance to his brothers at arms. One who has the National interest of the Fatherland in mind not the interest of the International bankers. One who wants to build rather than destroy. One who is not afraid to put his life on the line to unite his people to all want to create a better America. I only say German because the last time a man like this appeared he was a German.

George Galloway still presents for Press TV. Will he, or Alan Hart, (or even Gilad Atzmon) raise any meaningful protest against this mad antisemitic garbage?