Topic: Media Research Center
While the Media Research Center was taking George Soros out of context to falsely portray him as a supporter of Hamas terrorism, it was attacking him on other fronts. Tom Olohan used an Oct. 13 post to invoke right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro -- whom we last saw here trying to defend Elon Musk's endorsement of an anti-Semitic tweet -- to portray Soros as the Jew you're allowed to hate:
Daily Wire founding editor-in-chief and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro has had enough of leftists holding their friends to one standard and their opponents to another.
During an Oct. 11 appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Shapiro contrasted the vehemence with which the left condemned Soros’ critics as antisemites with the consideration and excuse making the left shows to Hamas and its supporters. Shapiro said, “There’s an amazing double standard when it comes to anti-Semitism and its treatment in the media and the way it seems to work in the media these days is if somebody politically says something about George Soros, then they will be labeled a Nazi and if somebody actually says, ‘I am a Nazi,’ then they will say, ‘Well there’s probably some sort of justification over territorial disputes.’"
This is not the first time Shapiro has called out this double standard, “Soros spends lots of money backing progressive prosecutors. Saying so does not make you anti-Semitic,” Shapiro wrote in a 2022 post. “It makes you correct. And unsurprisingly, many of those who find dog-whistles in mentioning Soros are totally silent about Hamas firing rockets at Jews, and support Ilhan Omar.”
Olohan asserted that "If the media covered Soros fairly, they might note his vast donations to anti-Israel groups," but he didn't explain how, exactly, those groups are "anti-Israel" nor why nobody is allowed to criticize Israel.
The MRC also continued its usual guilt-by-association attacks:
- BUYING AN ELECTION? NYT Hypes Soros-Tied Eco-Extremist Group Spending $80M to Help Biden in 2024 (we don't recall the MRC ever portraying donations to Republican candidates as "buying an election")
- America First Legal Sues Soros-Funded Org for Censorship Collusion
- AUDIO: Mark Levin Tells Congress to Investigate George Soros
Meanwhile, the MRC was trying to perpetuate its dishonest Hamas-related attacks on Soros. Joseph Vazquez huffed in a Nov. 7 post:
Leftist billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations finally released a statement condemning Hamas’ hellish attacks on Israel nearly three-and-a-half weeks after the Oct. 7 massacre. However, it did so while trying to make believe that the fortune it funneled into groups championing Hamas' barbarism didn’t exist.
The OSF Fact Sheet, “The Open Society Foundations in Israel and Palestine,” which supplemented the organization's Nov. 1 press release on Hamas, attempted to equivocate the conflict involving the Jewish state and the terrorist organization as a territorial dispute between Israel and “Occupied Palestinian Territories.” OSF flexed its decades-long bona fides of “proudly support[ing] efforts” to “contain escalating violence between state and non-state actors on both sides.” OSF had the audacity to claim that “[a]ll the groups we support are committed to nonviolence and adhere to the principle that human rights and safety should be enjoyed by Israelis and Palestinians alike, both currently and in whatever political solution eventually emerges in the region.” But this statement is demonstrably false. [Emphasis added.]
The MRC has shown that OSF has given to numerous pro-Hamas groups. The sordid list includes, but is not limited to: Al-Shabaka, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, the Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy and Dream Defenders, among others. Not only that, but Soros himself even called for the United States and Israel to embrace Hamas.
Two questions arise: Why would OSF feel the need to release a statement three and a half weeks after the Oct. 7 massacre? And why would it attempt to undercut its own record of funding pro-Hamas organizations?
Of course, Vazquez will never admit that his employer's dishonest smears of Soros prompted OSF to set the record straight. He laughably added: 'MRC Business reached out to Open Society Foundations for comment but received no response as of the publication of this article." As if OSF would want to legitimize Vazquez's bad-faith attacks on it.
Vazquez was at it again in a Nov. 10 post, ranting that the head of OSF made the argument that war is not the only solution to dealing with Hamas:
One of leftist billionaire George Soros’ chief henchmen clamored for Israel to employ diplomatic solutions in its conflict with Hamas after the latter’s genocidal Oct. 7 attacks on the Jewish state.Open Society Foundations president Lord Mark Malloch-Brown joined BBC Newsnight on Nov. 7 to give his organization’s position on the conflict, patronizing Israel on how it should deal with its attackers. His take was nothing short of ridiculous. Malloch-Brown claimed that there were “several other ways” of neutralizing the Hamas terrorists “rather than just — you know — beating the last one to the ground.” He lectured Israel, advocating that the country instead take a carrots-and-sticks approach to dealing with the terrorists: “You’ve got to use both the tools of diplomacy and military action but not compromise on the basic point that Israel must be guaranteed its security.” He even had the audacity to lecture that the reason why Palestinian military leadership repeatedly returns after being “taken out of the region” was because of the “absence of a two-state solution.” Utter nonsense.
However, Malloch-Brown’s position makes slightly more sense when recalling George Soros’ own writing in a 2007 Financial Times op-ed, where Soros ridiculously stated that the United States and Israel “must open the door to Hamas.” Malloch-Brown was apparently just channeling his boss’s anti-Israel sentiments and regurgitating them on live TV. In fact, Malloch-Brown himself previously expressed similar views when he was in the U.K. parliament. In 2007, Malloch-Brown outrageously called for Hamas to have a seat at the negotiating table before the House of Lords:
Vazquez screeched that this view was "absolutely horrific" -- but, again, he censored the fact that Hamas portrayed itself as a more moderate organization in 2007. Still, he conlcuded by huffing: 'Rule of thumb: Israel can’t negotiate with terrorists who don’t believe it even has the right to exist. But for the Soros lackeys at OSF, doing anything to push an agenda that’s advantageous to Hamas and detrimental to Israel appears to be the goal."