- Anti-Semitic threats and tropes are surging after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
- AG Merrick Garland and the Florida judge who signed the warrant have been targeted.
- The far-right has a history of latching on to anti-Semitic conspiracies that date back centuries.
The FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago has lead to a spike in extremist language online, including anti-Semitic threats against Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Florida judge who signed the search warrant. They are both Jewish.
Threats against Judge Bruce Reinhart were so severe that the south Florida synagogue where he worships canceled Friday services.
On Thursday, Reinhart signed off on the release of a redacted search warrant application in the case – which is expected to shed more light on what documents the FBI believes President Donald Trump retained when he left office.
"Since news of the raid broken out and Judge Reinhart's name has been out, both he and Garland have been subjected to an enormous amount of threats and vitriol online. And some of that has been anti-Semitic," Alex Friedfeld, who monitors online extremism for the Anti Defamation League's Center On Extremism, told Insider. "People are attacking them simply for being Jewish, as well as trying to weave them into conspiracy theories regarding Jewish control: That this is part of a Jewish-led attack on the right."
The extremist rhetoric kicked off after August 8 FBI raid on President Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, during which they retrieved highly classified information.
Supporters of Trump became so enraged that some called for violence and war against the FBI. One man went as far as attempting to breach the FBI field office in Cincinnati, armed with an assault rifle, before he was killed by police.
The backlash from his supporters became so severe, that Trump on Monday called for there to be less anger over the raid.
"People are so angry at what is taking place. Whatever we can do to help — because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn't, terrible things are going to happen," he told Fox News Digital.
Hours later, though, the former president resumed his attacks on the judge and the Justice Department, posting to Truth Social, a social-media platform created by one of Trump's companies, that there was "no way to justify the unannounced RAID of Mar-a-Lago."
Trump specifically named Reinhart in his post Monday, calling on him to recuse himself from the case, without giving specific reasoning.
The extremist language — some of which included explicit threats of violence on the officials and members of their family — has played out on social media platforms favored by the far-right, including 4chan, Telegram, Gettr, Gab, Truth Social.
In addition to identifying Reinhart's temple, they also posted his home address, phone numbers, and the names of his family members.
One online user on the imageboard 4chan wrote of Reinhart: "That is a k---. And a pedophile … He should be tried for treason and executed."
On 4Chan a person wrote,"You could remove every mortal jew [sic] from existence today but jewry [sic] will pop right back up. You have to remove the demons, that is the fight of good vs evil."
Hate as old as time
The anti-Semitic tropes that have been playing out in far-right spaces have roots as far back as the middle ages and are reworked and popularized by each new generation of conspiracy theorists.
The Trump supporting QAnon, for example, recycled dangerous blood libel and pedophile cabal conspiracies that first popped up in the 12th century.
One suggested alleged that Jews were responsible for kidnapping Christian children and drinking their blood — through adrenochrome, a fictional version of a chemical compound that's "harvested from the fear of children." — for religious rituals. Those claims, called blood-libel conspiracy theories, persisted throughout the 1800s and into the 20th century, according to the ADL.
QAnon's baseless belief in a secret cabal dominating the world also bears a strong resemblance to anti-Semitic theories, Insider's Rachel Greenspan previously reported.
The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a fictional text published in Russia in 1903, falsely alleged "a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Protocols," which continues to circulate online in anti-Semitic spaces, also referenced the blood libel.
QAnon recycled those false claims, replacing Jews with Democrats, celebrities, and anyone else the movement chooses to go after.
"These are some of the oldest narratives in the world and anti-Semites will constantly take any new story line and weaponize it for their advantage," Friedfeld told Insider.
The role of social media platforms
Friedfeld told Insider that Telegram, 4chan, and Gab are where the most vicious threats and anti-Semitic tropes are being waged online, but the rhetoric is also seen on more mainstream platforms to a lesser extent.
The hate "festers" on social media platforms, and Friedfeld said.
"It's deeply disturbing that they allow this stuff to continue," Friedfeld said of Telegram and Gab — calling 4chan and 8chan "lost causes."
"And it's dangerous," he said. "This stuff doesn't just stay online."
