COVID-19 'became opportunity for hatemongers' – deputy antisemitism envoy

US assistant special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism Ellie Cohanim spoke in a webinar hosted by the Hudson Institute, and addressed the challenges of fighting global antisemitism.

By OMRI NAHMIAS
In this image shared on Telegram on March 15, the coronavirus is presented as a trojan horse for “globalist” Jews. (photo credit: ADL/COURTESY)
In this image shared on Telegram on March 15, the coronavirus is presented as a trojan horse for “globalist” Jews.
(photo credit: ADL/COURTESY)
Ellie Cohanim, the US assistant special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said on Tuesday that COVID-19 "became an opportunity for the hatemongers."
In a webinar hosted by the Hudson Institute, Cohanim addressed the challenges of fighting global antisemitism. "It's a sad shame that people would use a pandemic as an opportunity to spread hatred of Jews," she said.
"What happened when the virus came out was that we saw forces either spreading conspiracy theories that Israel or the Jews somehow created the virus or that they were going to somehow profit from the virus. No matter that we know this virus emanated from Wuhan, China," said Cohanim.
She noted that the unfortunate thing was that a lot of these conspiracy theories emanated from government officials as well. "We saw that coming out of the Palestinian Authority, from Turkey, and from Iran as well. Ayatollah Khamenei posted a tweet in which he used the hashtag 'COVID 48,'" she continued. "We all know that what you need to do with the coronaviruses is to wipe it out. And so obviously, he was, again, advocating for the wiping out of Israel with this COVID 48 hashtag."
Addressing remarks and tweets by Iranian officials, Cohanim said that "the regime thinks that by scapegoating Israel, by scapegoating the Jewish people, they're going to somehow fool their people into not recognizing the tremendous problems that they have in their own society. And also the regimes' failure to really address the pandemic in a strong way."
She mentioned the quiet reaction in the Arab world after US President Donald Trump decided to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and said that the Arab street “is no longer buying it.”
“They're not buying the scapegoating of Israel and the Jews for the problems that they have internally, and the normalization that we see with Israel, I think also is a recognition from many governments in the region that they are on the same side with Israel,” Said Cohanim. “I think that Israel's neighbors, certainly the Gulf Arab countries, they all recognize that Iran is the threat in the region. And they're willing now to more openly work with Israel and work together to counter that shared threat.”