Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was criticized this week for seemingly suggesting that the coronavirus was an "ethnically targeted" bioweapon that targeted certain races while "sparing others, including Jews and Chinese.
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RFK Jr. made the remarks during a recent campaign event, video of which was obtained by the New York Post and published on Saturday.
"COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately," Kennedy said. "COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese."
"We don't know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact," he said.
"We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons," he claimed. "They're collecting Russian DNA. They're collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race."
Nevertheless, several figures came to Kennedy's defense, saying his words were taken out of context and misunderstood.
"The suggestion by the media, or indeed Jewish organizations who do not know him, that because of his musings about bio-weapons that he is somehow antisemitic is more than unfair – it's a disgusting lie," said Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
Kennedy himself denied the allegations, saying, "The insinuation by the New York Post and others that, as as result of my quoting a peer-reviewed paper on bio-weapons, I am somehow antisemitic, is a disgusting fabrication"
"I will fight relentlessly alongside my Jewish brothers and sisters and friends against Jew-hatred and the demonization of Israel," he said.
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