Jeffrey Goldberg: Beck Engages In “Anti-Semitic Dog-Whistling”

During his January 14 Fox News show, Glenn Beck ranted about purported members of what he called the “intelligent minority,” nefarious figures from government, finance, media, and academia who he says believe they can and should control everyone's choices, “not just in politics, but everywhere.” Of the nine individuals Beck singled out for attacks, we identified eight as being Jewish.

In a post on his Atlantic blog titled, “Glenn Beck's Jewish Problem,” national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg writes:

It's become clear to me that the Fox commentator Glenn Beck has something of a Jewish problem. Actually, he has something of a modernity problem, and people with modernity problems tend to have problems with Jews, who more or less invented modernity (Einstein, Marx, Freud, Franz Boas, etc.)

After listing the eight Jews Beck attacked, Goldberg continued:

It is fair to ask if Beck knows that these people are Jewish (It is not widely-known that Rendell is Jewish, I think). But Beck is a smart person, and has researchers at hand with access to Wikipedia. Further, most of these people on Beck's “big lie” list are already the targets of straightforward attacks in the dark, anti-Semitic corners of the Web, so an extended Google search, in some cases, would show that much of the opposition to some of these people is motivated by anti-Semitism. That said, Beck has not crossed a certain line, by identifying his targets openly as Jewish. Nevertheless, this, to me, is a classic case of anti-Semitic dog-whistling. Beck is speaking to a certain constituency, and the thought has now crossed my mind that this constituency understands the clear implications of what Beck is saying.

Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ) has called on News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch to fire Beck, because of what JFSJ president Simon Greer calls Beck's “Jewish problem.” Greer cited Beck's attacks on George Soros, as well as on the largely Jewish rogues gallery. In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Greer stated: “We find it hard to believe that it was only coincidence that eight of the nine individuals on his list alleging a shadowy alliance to control the Americans through propaganda were Jewish.”