radiofree.asia

The BBC wasn’t the only one to whitewash Elon Musk’s Nazi salute

The Nazi salute of world’s richest man Elon Musk was hardly surprising, considering the way he’s been spreading racist disinformation and backing fascists all around the world in recent months. He’s apparently now funding the legal fight of British far-right figure Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), for example. But the BBC‘s ‘both sides’ response was awful – as was a supposedly Jewish organisation – the ADL.

Elon Musk, the BBC, and the ADL

The British public broadcaster simply said “Musk responds to backlash over gesture at Trump rally”. This was despite it quoting historians specialising in fascism as saying Musk’s “gesture” was clearly a Nazi salute.

Even a confidant of Musk had reportedly praised the return of the “Roman salute” – which Benito Mussolini’s fascists used in Italy and then Adolf Hitler’s Nazis adopted in Germany. Whatever its pre-fascist historical origins, it is widely recognisable in the West as a commitment to the far-right cause.

Musk of course has pushed back – saying “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired”. Yet he didn’t deny or give explanation as to why he did a Nazi salute – and the argument that he was ‘sending his heart out’ to people doesn’t wash when you watch the actual timing of events.

Perhaps even more absurd, however, was the defence that the pro-Israel lobbyists at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) offered for Musk.

The ADL, which has waged a battle against TikTok because it reflected the pro-Palestinian sentiment of its mostly younger users, clearly thinks Musk is the ‘right kind of antisemite’ as he, like most other multi-billionaires, supports Israel. Because it tried to play down the importance of Musk’s salute, tweeting:

It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute

It said people were “on edge” and that “all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt”.

People were quick to point out that the ADL hasn’t given “grace” or “the benefit of the doubt” to people opposing the genocide in Gaza in the last 15 months. Its record has been quite the opposite.

Just recently, for example, it criticised historians for calling out Israel’s mass destruction of the occupied Palestinian territory’s education system. And many people are fully awake to the ADL’s shameless hypocrisy and complicity with the resurgence of fascism:

The right kind of fascist

Even some supporters of Israel can see through the ADL’s double standards. Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, for instance, says the ADL fears holding Musk to account and that:

They, and all major Jewish organizations will pursue any little powerless person with a Palestinian flag pin, but will not protect us from the real threats from powerful people.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, meanwhile, rightly insisted:

The use of an antisemitic genocidal signal by the world’s most powerful man, who has engaged in racism and antisemitism in the past, cannot be taken lightly or written off as a mistake.

Considering the ADL describes the Nazi salute as “the most common white supremacist hand sign in the world”, you’d think it would have given Musk no grace at all. Clearly, though, when it comes to Zionists are are ‘the right type of fascists’.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.