WASHINGTON ― In recent days anti-Semitic internet trolls have unleashed a wave of online attacks against Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s closest confidant and son-in-law, according to a group that tracks anti-Semitism.
“This campaign of anti-Semitism has been driven by white supremacists and anti-Semites and has all the hallmarks of classic Jewish conspiracy theories,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on Monday.
Trump has put Kushner in charge of a wide array of domestic and foreign policy initiatives, and Kushner has been feuding with White House chief strategist Steve Bannon ― the former head of Breitbart.com, a news website that publishes white nationalist content. Trump last week removed Bannon from his position on the National Security Council, reportedly in part because Kushner encouraged him to do so.
Pointing to statements from well-known white nationalists like David Duke and Richard Spencer, the ADL said the Twitter hashtag #FireKushner went viral last week in the aftermath of Trump’s missile attack on Syria.
“They contend that Trump has abandoned his ‘America First’ policy, which the alt right supported, because he is being manipulated by Kushner and other Jewish advisors,” the ADL said.
Many Trump loyalists have complained bitterly about the president’s decision to intervene in the Syrian war. Trump ordered the strike on a Syrian air base last week in the wake of a horrific nerve gas attack apparently carried out by the regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad.
“We are being brought down from within,” Duke tweeted on Sunday in one of his several contributions to the #FireKushner hashtag. “ZIO Supremacists are the true enemy of the American people... not Assad, not Putin.”
Business Insider reported Monday that Breitbart editors told staff to hold off on Kushner criticism, apparently because Kushner had complained to the president about negative coverage from Bannon’s former site.