Anti-Israel NGOs Are Exploiting Coronavirus to Spread Hate

"For anti-Israel advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which constantly attempt to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state, the COVID-19 pandemic's domination of the global news cycle poses a significant challenge-the world now has real problems to deal with.

Nevertheless, some NGOs have a solution. Namely, they have decided to link their agendas to COVID-19. This is consistent with previous attempts by NGOs to capitalize on the prevailing public discourse, such as manipulating narratives of climate change and LGBTQ rights as part of their anti-Israel campaigns.

Take, for instance, the offensive and anti-Semitic sentiment expressed in a tweet by Sarah Leah Whitson, the former head of Human Rights Watch's Middle East department and now with the Quincy Institute. Not for the first time, Whitson deployed classic anti-Semitic tropes, in this case the blood libel. In response to a cynical tweet that '6 million jewish [sic] Israelis' will now understand life under 'occupation' due to virus-related restrictions, Whitson lamented that it was 'such a tiny taste. Missing a tablespoon of blood.'..."