Israel's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday criticized a tweet by Twitter CEO Elon Musk accusing Jewish billionaire George Soros of conspiring against humanity.Foreign Ministry Director of Digital Diplomacy David Saranga stopped short of accusing Musk of antisemitism, but said that his remark had "an antisemitic flavor." In a follow-up tweet to an original post comparing the 92-year-old American Holocaust survivor to the Marvel Comics villain Magneto, Musk accused Soros of conspiring against civilization itself. The phrase "The Jews" became one of the top trending topics on Twitter following Musk's tweet.

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"Musk's tweet immediately led to a flood of antisemitic conspiracy theories on Twitter," said Saranga. "Unfortunately Twitter does nothing to address this problem."

Soros is a major donor to left-wing and progressive causes. He founded Open Society Foundations in 1993, an NGO which has been accused by NGO Monitor of participating in anti-Israel activities. Soros has donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations.

In November, shortly after acquiring the social media company for $44 billion, Musk posted a picture of a World War II Wehrmacht soldier carrying three carrier pigeons in a cage during the Nazi invasion of France. Musk visited Israel in 2018, posting a video to Instagram and Twitter of himself lighting cocktails on fire in a Jerusalem bar.

"Learning how to pour flaming absinthe over a tower of glasses in Gatsby, a Jerusalem speakeasy. Everything's better with fire," Musk wrote on Instagram. He also posted a selfie from the ancient Judean desert fortress of Masada with the caption: "Paid respects to Masada earlier today. Live free or die."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The US Embassy in Budapest condemned Monday an article published by Hungarian ministerial commissioner Szilard Demeter that compared billionaire George Soros to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

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"There should be no tolerance for Holocaust relativization and minimization of any kind," the embassy posted on its Twitter account.

The U.S. Embassy in Budapest strongly condemns the statements made in a recent op-ed equating current debates in Europe with the horrific murder of millions of people during the Holocaust. There should be no tolerance for Holocaust relativization and minimization of any kind. pic.twitter.com/DNDuoonu2u

— US Embassy Budapest (@usembbudapest) November 30, 2020

In his opinion piece, Demeter referred to Europe as "George Soros' gas chamber," and called Soros "the liberal Führer" [whose] liber-aryan army deifies him more than did Hitler's own."

The piece prompted strong reactions from several Hungarian Jewish groups and opposition politicians and was also condemned by the Israeli Embassy.

More than 12,000 people, including numerous Hungarian public figures like Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony, have signed a petition demanding Demeter's resignation.

Demeter retracted the article following the backlash and deleted his Facebook account.

Deputy Prime Minister Mihaly Varga said that Demeter would remain in his position, saying that by retracting his article and deleting his Facebook account, Demeter "admitted his mistake" and understood that his article "could harm the memory of the victims."

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An Israel Hayom exclusive has already caused a firestorm in Israel prompting outrage at Likud, which said on Tuesday that it might petition the Central Elections Committee to see if the organization behind the campaign is in violation of Israel's campaign finance laws.

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The organization behind this initiative is called The Israeli Alliance. It was formed by a group of Israeli left-wing activists who created a Facebook page called "Third Time is Enough," referring to the upcoming election being the third early election Israel is holding in less than a year because of the political stalemate.

The group has been actively using this page to harness the discontent among many Israelis over the fact that they are once again going to the polls, with memes and captions such as, "This time we must not let a single vote stay at home."

The Facebook page has the ostensible goal of making the March 2 vote come to a decisive outcome so that another election won't have to be called. The organization operating the page, The Israeli Alliance, was founded in 2017 and its director general has in the past been associated with the Labor party.

According to Facebook's publicly available data, in the run-up to the September 2019 election, the Israeli Alliance ran at least six Facebook pages, including the following: "Those who don't vote are worthless," "My first time," and "Down with the high cost of living." One of the pages was in Russian.

The pages' themes make it abundantly clear that while they do not endorse a specific party or candidate, they would very much like to see a change of governments in Israel, with posts that are unmistakably against incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with multiple attacks on his alleged corruption.

On its English website, at least as of Monday, The Israeli Alliance says it is funded "by the donations of thousands of Israelis who agreed to join us in the effort of making a difference in Israeli society. The Israeli Alliance is also supported by Jewish donors from across the world."

Its Hebrew site, as of Monday, states that the Tides Foundation, an organization backed by Jewish left-wing financier George Soros is also one of its donors, but the Israeli Alliance told Israel Hayom that its ties to that foundation were severed about a year ago.

Soros has backed many left-wing groups, including those that have been accused of actively promoting anti-Israeli activity. Soros has also been linked to many groups that have been supportive of various Democratic candidates in the US, including former President Barack Obama.

The Justice Ministry records show that the Israeli Alliance received more than 3.3 million shekels ($981,000) in donations in 2018, including NIS 2.9 million shekels ($847 million) from abroad.

In the six weeks leading to the Sept. 17 vote, the organization spent more than NIS 2.7 million ($788,000) on Facebook advertising and this time around it has already spent NIS 300,000 ($87,000 ), including NIS 130,000 over the past week alone.

In 2015, the V15 organization spent significant funds to promote the unseating of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The organization was accused of being a de facto political arm of the Left, although it claimed that it was not promoting any specific candidate.

In 2017, the Likud successfully passed a new law in the Knesset dubbed the V15 Law that requires politically active organizations to register as a political entity with the State Comptroller's Office as if it was a party, and hence be subject to various campaign finance disclosure requirements and regulations if its activities are valued at more than NIS 102,000 ($28,000).

As far as Israel Hayom can tell, the Israeli Alliance has not registered as a political entity and has not disclosed its financial records in full despite meeting the threshold set by the V15 Law.

The organization may not be required to register as a political entity because it is technically not backing any particular party or political affiliation, but it appears that it may very well be targeting only specific voters through various tools that distribute ads on social networks to specific audiences.

This could mean that while it is not in violation of the law, it is, in fact, helping drive up turnout in specific areas in a way that increases the chances of victory for certain parties.

Facebook provided Israel Hayom with the following statement: "The Facebook Ad Library includes the ads of every page that uses our apps and services. For ads that deal with elections or political matters, the library shows who has seen the ad and the expenses and exposure of each ad, and it saves the ads for seven years. It also includes information on the page that promotes the ad, the 'paid for by' statement, phone number, email of the advertiser, the link to its site and other ads of that advertiser. The report is updated daily and is accessible to everyone. We are committed to being transparent but also to maintaining the privacy of people on the platform."

The Israeli Alliance issued the following statement: "We love Israel. We are disheartened to see the state holding one election after another in this never-ending cycle. In order to avoid another fourth early election, we call on all Israelis from all parts of Israel and from all political persuasions to go out and vote. A third time is enough, and it depends only on Israelis. Those who feel hurt by activity undertaken by civil society and fears that Israelis will exercise their democratic right should think hard what their motives are.

"It is unfortunate that Israel Hayom has not carried out its duty as a major media organization to encourage turnout for everyone and has ignored our requests for collaboration on the matter, and has instead chosen to suppress such initiatives."

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In 2017, Garrison drew a cartoon of then-US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and retired US Gen. David Petraeus on strings controlled by Jewish billionaire George Soros, who is dangled on strings controlled by a hand from a single arm labeled "Rothschilds," referring to the iconic Jewish philanthropic family from the United Kingdom that has been a common target of anti-Semitic conspiracies.

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"It is completely unacceptable that the Trump Administration would invite someone to the White House who has been known to write anti-Semitic cartoons," US House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told JNS.

Other members of Congressional leadership did not respond to a request for comment.

Nevertheless, Jewish and pro-Israel organizations criticized the White House invitation of Garrison.

"Hopefully, the president is not aware of the anti-Semitic quality of the [McMaster-Petraeus-Soros-Rothschild] cartoon so that he, when he gets aware, he should revoke the invitation immediately," Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East truth, told JNS on Sunday evening.

"#Anti-Semitism becomes normalized when obvious examples, like grossly #antiSemitic cartoons, are overlooked. Just as cartoons of this sort shouldn't be published anywhere, cartoonists who produce such hate shouldn't be invited to the White House. We call on WH to rescind invite," tweeted Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

#AntiSemitism becomes normalized when obvious examples, like grossly #antiSemitic cartoons, are overlooked. Just as cartoons of this sort shouldn't be published anywhere, cartoonists who produce such hate shouldn't be invited to the White House. We call on WH to rescind invite. https://t.co/ts8vnle3Tm

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) 7 ביולי 2019

"We strongly condemn President Trump's invitation to anti-Semitic cartoonist Ben Garrison to the White House Social Media Summit later this week. Despite Garrison's record using social media to promulgate hate and disinformation, the White House has opened its doors to him, while reportedly excluding Twitter and Facebook representatives," Jewish Democratic Council of America executive director Halie Soifer told JNS. "This invitation demonstrates that the Trump administration condones Garrison's anti-Semitic imagery, as well as his use of social media to spread hate."

The Republican Jewish Coalition said: "We are very concerned by his past cartoons. We have an active conversation with the White House on this and are working with them on it."

Facebook and Twitter have reportedly not been invited to the summit.

The White House declined to comment on the record.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The organization said it was no longer possible to work in Turkey after it became the target of "baseless claims" in the media and a renewed investigation by Turkish authorities into mass protests against Erdogan's government five years ago.

It said the Turkish Interior Ministry was renewing attempts to prove that the Soros foundation was behind the 2013 Gezi Park protests, one of the biggest political challenges to Erdogan's 15-year rule. The foundation denied any link to the protests.

Erdogan denounced Soros last week while speaking of the detention of 13 activists and academics accused of supporting attempts by jailed businessman and rights advocate Osman Kavala to revive the Gezi protests.

"The person [Kavala] who financed terrorists during the Gezi incidents is already in prison," Erdogan told a meeting of local administrators on Wednesday.

"And who is behind him? The famous Hungarian Jew Soros. This is a man who assigns people to divide nations and shatter them. He has so much money and he spends it this way."

One of the 13 people detained on Nov. 16 was Hakin Altinay, who helped establish the Open Society Foundation in Turkey. Others were staff members of Kavala's Anadolu Kultur center, which campaigns for human rights and cultural diversity.

All but one of the detainees were later released, but not before the European Union and United States expressed concern about their cases.

Ankara's Western allies have repeatedly criticized the arrest of tens of thousands of people since a failed military coup in Turkey in July 2016.

Kavala, in detention for more than a year, said in a statement posted on his website Monday that he was still waiting for an indictment to be prepared so that he could prove that the claims he had helped to direct and finance the Gezi protests and wanted to overthrow the government were "unfounded."

The pro-government Sabah newspaper, citing reports from financial crime investigators, said on Monday Open Society Foundations had made financial transfers to Kavala's organization to support the spread of the Gezi protests nationwide.

It said nearly 1.9 million lira ($363,000) had been transferred between August 2011 and April 2017.

The foundation said it informed the Turkish authorities every year about which institutions and projects had received donations, and the authorities had approved them.

"However, with the new investigations that have been opened, it is seen that there is an effort to link the Open Society Foundations to the Gezi incidents in 2013. These efforts are not new and they are outside reality," it said.

The foundation said it would apply for legal liquidation and shut the company's operations as soon as possible.

"The increase of baseless claims and disproportionate speculation in the media in recent days has made it impossible for the foundation to continue its operations."

Soros and his Open Society Foundations have also come under fire in Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused Soros and the liberal groups he backs of trying to undermine Europe's Christian culture by promoting mass migration, a charge the financier denies.

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