Donald Trump with rapper Kanye West (December 2016)
Photo:
Timothy A Clary/AFP
The Simon Wiesenthal Center lists a dinner between former US President Donald Trump, rapper Kanye West and right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes in its 2022 global anti-Semitism list.
Mention of the meeting can be found under “The Influencers” at the top of the “Top Ten Worst Global Antisemitic Incidents”.
According to the justification, the meeting contributes to "the normalization and expansion of anti-Semitism" on the part of Kanye West.
West had recently made headlines with his admiration for Hitler and his fondness for conspiracy myths.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, initially failed to "condemn Fuentes or fully explain why he met Kanye West," according to the Wiesenthal Center.
West uses his massive social media influence to convert historical anti-Jewish clichés into a "firestorm of real-time anti-Semitism."
The Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles publishes an annual list of what it considers the ten worst anti-Semitic incidents of the past year.
The UN Human Rights Council, the Palestinian Authority and the scandal surrounding anti-Semitic works of art at Documenta 15 were also counted on this time.
The list had been increasingly criticized in recent years.
This is what the German UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen was called in 2019.
The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, then defended the diplomat and said: Such "really completely inappropriate" allegations would only complicate the discussion.
Last year, the anti-Semitism commissioner for the state of Baden-Württemberg, Michael Blume, was named.
Allegedly, he liked anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli and conspiratorial Twitter accounts and passed on posts.
The Jewish religious communities in Baden-Württemberg then condemned the mention as an "attempt to disparage the anti-Semitism officer."
Blume's name no longer appears in the current list.
However, the Wiesenthal Center's "Top Ten" states that Jews are "extremely concerned by the fact that two of Germany's anti-Semitism commissioners "are themselves accused of anti-Semitism."
Michael Blume at least referred to the statement in a Twitter post.
Sol