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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims COVID was ‘ethnically targeted’ to avoid Ashkenazi Jews, Chinese people
(JTA) — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the vaccine conspiracy theorist and Democratic presidential candidate, is drawing criticism after arguing that COVID-19 had been “ethnically targeted” to have less of an effect on Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” Kennedy said at an appearance last week at Tony’s Di Napoli, a restaurant on Manhattan’s East Side. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazic Jews and Chinese. We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential of impact.”
“There’s an argument that it is ethnically targeted,” he said immediately beforehand, according to the New York Post, which published video of the remarks.
Kennedy, who is running a long-shot campaign for the Democratic nomination against President Joe Biden, is a flag-bearer for an anti-vaccination movement that has frequently invoked antisemitic rhetoric in arguing, against evidence, that vaccines are dangerous. He has questioned the established link between HIV and AIDS and also has been a leading proponent of the debunked claim that there is a link between vaccines and autism.
Since at least medieval times, conspiracy theories have falsely claimed that Jews have shielded themselves from plagues or been the cause of them. Similar antisemitic conspiracy theories flared during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly as vaccines became available and their critics began comparing their use, and mandates requiring vaccination, to the Holocaust.
Last year, Kennedy apologized after invoking Anne Frank at an anti-vaccination rally in Washington, D.C., in a move that his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines, publicly denounced. But his anti-vaccination comparisons have drawn criticism for years. In 2015, he used the word “holocaust” to describe proposed legislation mandating vaccines for children and apologized after facing criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.
His latest comments, too, have drawn widespread criticism, including from Jewish leaders. American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement that Kennedy’s remarks were “deeply offensive and incredibly dangerous.”
“Every aspect of his comments reflects some of the most abhorrent antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout history and contributes to today’s dangerous rise of antisemitism,” Deutch said.
There is no evidence that any ethnic groups are less susceptible to COVID-19, which has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide. Public health experts say disparities in death rates in the United States reflect unequal access to health care and uptake of vaccines; meanwhile, Jews in the United States were hard-hit, particularly early in the pandemic, and some estimates suggest that 1 million Chinese people died of the disease in recent months. (China’s official data is not considered reliable.)
Kennedy did not detail which papers he was citing during his comments at the dinner, according to the New York Post report.
On Saturday, Kennedy wrote on Twitter that the Post story was “mistaken” and claimed that he “never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews.”
But later in the same post, he wrote that “COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races” and that it “serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons. I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.” He provided a link to a study that he said backed up his claims.
In a subsequent post, Kennedy said the New York Post’s reporting, which he called a “disgusting fabrication,” reflected antisemitism — something he said he is dedicated to combating.
“I understand the emotional pain that these inaccurate distortions and fabrications have caused to many Jews who recall the blood libels of poison wells and the deliberate spread of disease as the pretext for genocidal programs against their ancestors,” he wrote. “My father and my uncles, John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy, devoted enormous political energies during their careers to supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism. I intend to spend my political career making those family causes my priority.”
Kennedy has Jewish defenders — including Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the author and Republican political activist, as well as sports reporter and pro-Israel advocate Emily Austin. But his comments drew criticism from across the political spectrum. The New York Post reported that Morton Klein, the president of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America who is advising Kennedy on Israel policy and calls him a “good friend,” said the candidate’s claims were “crazy.”
“This is crazy,” Klein told the newspaper. “It makes no sense that they would do that. I read everything. I was totally against the vaccine. . . I wanted to convince myself it was correct not to take it. I have never seen anything like this.”
Meanwhile, Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the left-leaning Jewish Council on Public Affairs, said in a statement that Kennedy was “using support for Israel to deflect criticism” and said that she was unsurprised but distressed by Kennedy’s rhetoric.
“Antisemitism is at the core of countless conspiracy theories – including COVID and vaccine-related conspiracy theories – so it’s no surprise that RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign has quickly descended into overt antisemitism,” Spitalnick said. “His comments also illustrate the deep interconnection of antisemitism and anti-Asian hate at this moment. … At a moment of increasingly normalized antisemitism, hate, and extremism, it’s crucial that we call out these conspiracy theories and bigotry for what they are.”
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The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims COVID was ‘ethnically targeted’ to avoid Ashkenazi Jews, Chinese people appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Retribution in Syria: What It Means for Israel and the Region
Syria’s newly appointed president for a transitional phase Ahmed al-Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salam, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Bandar Algaloud Saudi Royal Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS
The carnage in Syria is terrifying, horrifying, and gruesome — particularly if you are a member of a Syrian minority group — Christians, Druze, Kurds. Or Alawite.
Did no one think there would be retribution after the ouster of the brutal Alawite Assad regime?
When Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) commandeered Damascus in December, no one seemed very upset. After all, Bashar al-Assad had been responsible for more than 500,000 deaths during the Syrian civil war — including from starvation and chemical attack — plus creating 6 million refugees inside the country and another 5 million outside and wrecking the country from top to bottom.
But HTS has been sitting in Damascus — and Assad had tens of thousands of soldiers in historic Alawite territory around Latakia, where fighting recently broke out.
Some of those ousted soldiers appear to have attacked government forces, and they are paying for it. So are the other minority groups that Assad allowed to live in relative peace for a while with Iranian protection because they, like he, feared the majority, Sunnis.
And, as always, civilians are the victims, because once the forces of retribution are unleashed, they are hard to control — particularly as HTS is not the only armed terror group in the country.
HTS is Sunni, ISIS-adjacent, Al Qaeda-adjacent, and armed by and aligned with Recip Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly Islamist Turkey.
HTS evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” Al-Qaeda’s former branch in Syria, which was designated a terror organization by the US in 2012, None of that appeared terribly important in the West.
HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) is an international jihadist. He broke with Ayman al-Zawahiri — the leader of Al-Qaeda — in 2016, and HTS received its own terror designation from the US in 2018. He has no loyalty, moving from an alliance with Al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq, to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, to Al-Qaeda in Syria, to his own brand.
Al-Sharaa talked a fairly moderate game, but his alliance with Turkey should have been a tip-off. Turkey has been waging an ugly war against Kurds in the north of Syria — bombing towns and cities, and at one point cutting off water to a million people.
The history should have made you think that al-Sharaa was not going to be a peaceful neighbor to anyone. Anywhere.
Israel wasn’t taking chances.
Immediately, the IDF struck Syrian chemical weapons depots and “research facilities.” It struck the ports of Al-Bayda and Latakia, taking out dozens of sea-to-sea missiles with ranges of 80–190 km, each with significant explosive payloads. The Israeli Air Force targeted anti-aircraft batteries, airfields, and dozens of weapons production sites, neutralizing Scud missiles, cruise missiles, surface-to-sea, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles, plus UAVs, fighter jets, attack helicopters, radars, tanks, hangars, and more. And the IDF conducted strikes on 130 ground assets in Syria, including weapons depots, military structures, launchers, and firing positions.
The IDF estimated it had eliminated 80 percent of the Assad arsenal. Voices were raised in the UN, the EU, and in the Middle East over Israel’s declaration that it would continue to hold slivers of the Syrian Golan. Syria’s Druze and Kurdish communities, however, asked for Israel’s protection, and at least one southern village asked to be annexed to Israel.
Still in December, the Biden administration started a conversation with HTS leadership in Damascus. Turkey promoted its ties with HTS and with al-Sharaa. As recently as last week, parts of the Washington “policy wonk” community were promoting an “alliance” between Turkey and Israel, led by the US, to cement a “moderate” Syria and pave the way for reconstruction funds to flow.
Try again.
Now, with the death toll mounting — and gory and heartrending videos from Syria flooding the Internet — al-Sharaa declared it necessary to “preserve national unity and domestic peace; we can live together.”
And where is the US? President Donald Trump, in his first term, directly punished the Assad regime for a chemical attack, and CENTCOM has been active in striking ISIS positions in Syria in his second. There appears to be no decision on whether to withdraw the roughly 2,200 American troops remaining in northern Syria.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, appears to be giving al-Sharaa a bit of wiggle room. “The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days … Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
Good idea, but al-Sharaa and HTS are themselves radical Islamists. It is unclear that he can or wants to kill his Sunni allies on behalf of the Alawites, who decimated Syria’s Sunni population.
Retribution is a nasty game.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly magazine.
The post Retribution in Syria: What It Means for Israel and the Region first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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How Reuters and Getty Images Platform a Gaza Photojournalist Kissed by Hamas’ Sinwar
Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City on April 14, 2023. Photo: Yousef Masoud / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
On October 7, 2023, Gazan photojournalist Hassan Eslaiah held a grenade in one hand and a camera in the other, documenting Hamas’ massacre inside Israel. His exposure by HonestReporting, which brought to light a cozy photo of Eslaiah and former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, led to the end of his employment at CNN and the Associated Press.
Yet more than a year later, his work was still being offered for sale by Reuters and stock photo agency Getty Images, along with other compromised photojournalists in Gaza. (Getty only removed his work last week after an initial version of this story was published on HonestReporting’s website — and it remains available on Reuters).
Hassan Eslaiah (r) with former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (l)
An HonestReporting investigation revealed that the two media companies have been distributing the tainted content in collaboration with state-run Turkish agency Anadolu — an arrangement that seems to enable their profit without liability. Both companies have a global reach, with Reuters as one of the world’s largest news agencies and US-based Getty Images as one of the world’s largest image licensing companies.
Their databases also present images by Anadolu freelancers Ashraf Amra and Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, who Reuters officially distanced itself from after HonestReporting’s investigative team exposed Amra’s close relations with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and his shared call with Abu Mostafa to invade Israel.
One of Abu Mostafa’s images, which is still for sale on the Reuters platform, has, according to Anadolu, been used as evidence in the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Unethical Content Distribution
Reuters partnered with Anadolu, which also collaborates with AFP and DPA to distribute its content, back in 2019. Reuters said that “these partnerships will help us create the most comprehensive collection of real-time, multimedia news content anywhere in the world.”
Anadolu’s partnership with Getty Images started in 2013, with Getty’s Senior Director of photography for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa saying at the time: “I am very excited at the prospect of seeing the Anadolu Agency represented by Getty Images around the world … I believe that the Anadolu Agency and Getty Images will benefit greatly from this partnership.”
Indeed, the partnership proved useful not only for the companies, but also for the compromised Gazan photojournalists who can no longer work directly for Western media.
Currently, Reuters offers for sale over 200 Anadolu photos by Hassan Eslaiah (spelled Hasan Eslayeh on their platforms). Most of the photos show Hamas’ hostage release ceremonies, including the barbaric handover of terrified Israeli hostage Arbel Yehud amid a mob of terrorists (which other Western media also picked up):
Eslaiah’s easy access and proximity to the action isn’t surprising. He enjoyed the same conditions on October 7, 2023 when he infiltrated with Hamas into Israel:
And here is footage of Eslaiah after he crossed into Israel and took photos of a burning Israeli tank. He then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
Note that he is not identifiable as a member of the press. But AP & CNN deemed it acceptable to use his services. pic.twitter.com/fA0VI2df2i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2023
The fact that Eslaiah was fired from CNN and AP after we exposed him in November 2023 seems not to have affected his livelihood, with Reuters and Getty Images distributing his propagandist material under the cover of the partnership with Anadolu.
And until last week, Getty Images had no qualms about charging $175-499 dollars for each photo, presumably also including a cut for Anadolu and Eslaiah himself.
Reuters keeps the pricing confidential, but adds a disclaimer distancing itself from the content. The disclaimer seems like a cop-out because on its collaborations page, where Anadolu is listed, Reuters praises its partners’ “compelling content.”
In other words — Reuters and Getty Images make a profit, while abdicating responsibility for spreading the manipulative photos of a Hamas sympathizer, whose pockets are presumably also lined.
Platform for Manipulation
The same business model also seems to work for Gazan photojournalists Ashraf Amra and Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa. Reuters officially cut ties with them after we exposed in January 2024 that Amra was honored by former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and hosted an Instagram Live with Abu Mostafa in which they called on Gazans to infiltrate into Israel on October 7.
Here’s Amra getting a kiss from Haniyeh in 2023 and receiving an honor from the unlamented Hamas leader in 2012. pic.twitter.com/VdWXN6wB32
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 23, 2025
But as Anadolu contributors, Amra and Abu Mostafa are both featured on the Reuters platform — Amra with over 5,000 photos and Abu Mostafa with over 300. On Getty, Amra is less prominent but over 150 photos of Abu Mostafa are offered for sale, including video clips.
These photos don’t just sit in the databases. Reuters and Getty are among the world’s largest digital distribution platforms used by thousands of media clients worldwide.
Recently, Getty clients like The Times of London and the Daily Express were happy to buy Amra’s Anadolu photo showing the moment when Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov “kissed” the head of his Hamas captor:
CNN did the same with Amra’s Anadolu photos of Israeli hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy via Getty Images.
And last year, Anadolu weaponized one of Abu Mostafa’s photos — still on sale in the Getty Images and Reuters platforms — as evidence at the ICJ case accusing Israel of committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
According to Anadolu, the photo “shows the mass burial of the Fatayer family members in a designated area in Gaza due to the lack of available space in some cemeteries.”
Fayq’s photo in Getty Images database
Fayq’s Photo in Anadolu website
Fayq’s Photo in Reuters Database
Sadly, the court didn’t know the photo was taken by a “journalist” who was thrilled by the massacre of Jews and called on Gazans to infiltrate the border, to enjoy the abduction of “settler” women.
But more Reuters and Getty’s own responses, it may be time for US Attorney General Pam Bondi to take an interest. In December 2023, following HonestReporting’s exposure of photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on October 7, 14 state attorneys general wrote a letter to The New York Times, AP, CNN, and Reuters calling them out for using hires with ties to Hamas and reminding them that providing material support to terrorists and terror organizations is a crime.
The letter even specifically mentions the case of Hasan Eslaiah and ends by calling on the media outlets to “ensure that you are taking all necessary steps to prevent your organizations from contracting with members of terror organizations. We urge you in the strongest terms to take care that your hiring practices conform to the laws forbidding material support for terror organizations.”
Despite whatever action may be taken, these propagandists have found a deceitful way to continue spreading their lies to the international media.
And the international media can, for at least the time being, enjoy the “goods” without getting their hands dirty.
UPDATE
Within a few hours of publication of this article on HonestReporting’s website, Getty Images, to their credit, removed all content that was flagged by HonestReporting, including a Ramzi Adel video that called Jews “dogs,” and content from Hassan Eslaiah, Ashraf Amra, and Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa.
The same cannot be said for Reuters, however, which gave us the following statement referring to the Connect platform it operates: “Reuters Connect is a commercial marketplace with content from more than 100 news organizations, allowing media customers the option to select the content that is most relevant to their news cycle. This content is clearly labeled and is not endorsed by Reuters.”
HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post How Reuters and Getty Images Platform a Gaza Photojournalist Kissed by Hamas’ Sinwar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Authority Pays February Terror Salaries — Abbas Continues ‘Pay-for-Slay’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appoints Mohammad Mustafa as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in Ramallah, in the West Bank March 14, 2024 in this handout image. Photo: Palestinian president office/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Last week, the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced that it is paying February’s monthly “allowances.”
Two similar announcements appeared, as can be seen in the chart below — with the PA Postal Service laconically announcing the payments in general and the “PA employees’ salaries” Telegram channel noting that these were the monthly payments for “Martyrs, wounded, and prisoners”:
| Palestine Post, Facebook page, March 5, 2025 | “PA employees’ salaries”, Telegram, March 5, 2025 |
| “Palestine Post announces the beginning of payment of the monetary allowances tomorrow morning, Thursday, March 6, 2025, at the main post offices and through the ATMs … The allowance payments in the Jenin and Tulkarem districts will be made through the nearest payment center in the other nearby districts due to the security situation.
#PalestinePost” |
“Palestine Post: The payment of salaries to the families of the Martyrs, wounded, and prisoners begins on Thursday morning [March 6, 2025]. In Jenin and Tulkarem, the payment will be made through the nearest payment center in the adjacent other districts.” |
While the Palestine Post announcement did not mention for whom the payments were in particular, the employees’ channel understood that these payments were for terrorists — the Pay-for-Slay payments that the PA had said it had stopped.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is certain that these are terror salaries, because the PA postal service never made payments for the PA prior to April 2021. The postal service started making payments only after PA banks closed 35,000 terrorist bank accounts, following PMW’s warning to the banks that their continued acceptance of the PA terror rewards would constitute a violation of Israeli law, and expose them to civil and criminal liability:
The decision to pay the prisoners’ salaries through the post office branches was … after the banks refused to accept the salary sheets of the prisoners and released prisoners due to the Israeli threats (i.e., PMW’s warning letters) to harm and sue them.
[Ma’an, independent Palestinian news agency, April 5, 2021]
From that first terror payment in April 2021 through August 2024, the PA postal service announcements explicitly said that the payments were for the “Martyrs, prisoners and wounded,” just like the current post in the PA employees’ salaries’ Telegram group.
After August 2024, the announcements became more general, possibly due to international condemnation when PMW exposed these continued payments.
PMW has verified that the postal service made no announcements of any payments of any kind before April 5, 2021, the month the PA moved the terror salaries from the banks to the postal service. In other words, the only payments the postal service makes are terror rewards, which continued this month.
The payments made by the PA postal services are proof that the Pay-for-Slay payments to terrorists continue, despite Mahmoud Abbas’ presidential decree changing certain structures, as anticipated by PMW.
Itamar Marcus is Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)’s Founder and Director. Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
The post Palestinian Authority Pays February Terror Salaries — Abbas Continues ‘Pay-for-Slay’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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