Over the years, I have seen many people getting "accused" of having Jewish ancestry by their political adversaries. This tactic is used to discredit the person, throw doubts on their loyalty, and attribute undefined ulterior motives for their often controvertial actions.
These rumors are appealing to the masses because it offers a simple (wrong) answer to complex questions (actions of leaders).
People that I have seen in the Arab region and the Middle East accused of this include:
- Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of the military coup in Egypt 1952, and later president and ruthless dictator. He abolished the political system and parliament, nationalized many companies, revoked land ownership by the rich, threw the economy into a recession, lost the Six Day War in 1967, oppressed countless people in prison and much more.
- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, notorious for abolishing the Ottoman rule and the remnants of the Muslim Caliphates, suppressing religion in Turkey, changing the writing system from Arabic based script to a Latin based one, and much more.
- The Royal family of Jordan, descendants of the Sharifs of Makkah, whose King Hussein was an ally of Israel when most Arab countries were not. See the accusation here (Arabic).
- The Al-Saud Royal family of Saudi Arabia, who historically supported the puritan Wahhabi movement, and invaded neighboring areas.
- Yasser Arafat, revolutionary and resistance leader, as well as ineffective president of the Palestinian Authority.
- Saddam Hussein, president and dictator of Iraq.
- Marawan Hamada, Lebanese politician and cabinet minister. Accused of tipping Israel on the whereabouts of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizbulla during the Israel/Lebanon war in 2006.
- Youssef Wali, Egyptian politician, minister of Agriculture and vice prime minister for a long time. Accused of importing from Israel many crops and cultivars as well as importing cancer inducing pesticides into Egypt in a conspiracy.
- Fidel Castro, Cuba's revolutionary, president and dictator.
Che Guevara
However, what prompted me to write this is not to do with the Arab region at all.
A story in circulation now by email claims that Che Guevara, the South American revolutionary leader and cult icon in the 1960s had a Jewish mother. Not only that, but that his cousin is Ariel Sharon himself, ruthless military leader, and hard line ex-prime minister of Israel.
His mother was Celia de la Serna Llosa. The rumor says she her parents are Russian Jews and she left to Argentina for reasons unknown. This rumor originated as an anonymous article in Russian. It is now making the rounds in Spanish in South America.
It is funny and sad to see how one's biases shape their view.
In this case, A pro-Zionist blogger translates choice quotes from the article, not approving any of it, lamenting the anti-Israel tone in it. Meanwhile, another blog opposing Israel sees this as Israeli propaganda!
Even Al Ahram, a leading newspaper in Egypt found it worthwhile to report on this story. They show a picture of the iconic Guevara with a beard and beret, but with the face of Ariel Sharon in the picture. To their credit, they correctly point to several sources who discredit the rumor. These include a Tel Aviv University professor who wrote a biography of Guevara. Another is Omri, son of Ariel Sharon who says no such great aunt of his exist. Another is the manager of the Guevara museum in Cuba, and the head of the Jewish community in Cuba as well.
It should also be noted that Guevara's maternal grandparents are Juan Martín de la Serna Ugalde [Serna] b. 1871, and Edelmira de la Llosa [Llosa] b. 1880?. These cannot be Russian nor Jewish names.
Comments
Sephardic Jews
I agree. An extremely large percentage of the Spaniards who settled the Spanish Americas were Jewish, escaping the expulsion of Jews from Spain and the Inquisition. Most modern day Spaniards even have between 10-20% Jewish ancestry because of those who were forced to convert and weren't allowed to leave the country. They eventually intermarried among all Spaniards.
Blue blood Spanaird , Irish noble
Jesuit missione guarani indian converts
Spanish Catholic
Occam's Razor
Crypto-Jews have no alliance to their host nation. And when it's discovered that someone IS a crypto-Jew it provides the obvious explanation for their subversive actions; a Crypto-Jew colonizing vulnerable nations with Socialism/Communism.
Oy vey! This isn't new. They've been doing it a long time. The Bolshevik Revolution, Stalinism and Nazism are just some of the prime examples.
I thought they were the Master Race, what are they hiding from?
As they say:
If the shoe fits...
Oppression is the reason
If you are referring to crypto-Jews in post Reconquista Iberia, then oppression and prosecution are the reason, not practicing a faith in secret.
The Jews were there for centuries, before the Arabs took over. They and the remaining Moriscos were forced to convert in the late 1400s, early 1500s. And despite doing so, the descendants living for a century (3 generations) as Christians, their birth/baptism records were kept separate and they were called New Christians. They were barred from holding government or religious jobs, because of Purity of Blood rules (Lempiza de Sangre). Then after all that time, they were expelled. I
Your conflation of Judaism with Socialism and Communism is a twisted reading of history's events. Many Jews (and other minorities) embraced change since it was a promise of liberation, both from the shackles of their old religion as well as prejudice form society at large. That is why minorities were prominent in the Young Turks movement in the late Ottoman era, and Bahais were at the forefront of constitutional reforms in Iran in the early 20th century.
Your claim that the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalinism and Nazism are the work of Jews is another false claim, ignoring multiple complex factors and is just conspiracy drivel ...
Oppression
"Conspiracy" "drivel"? Tell that to the tens of millions of Russian Christians (the "kulaks") who were executed, starved to death, or sent to the gulags to be worked to death. There is PLENTY of extant evidence that the primary movers and shakers of "Bolshevism" and those who held the primary positions of power were, 9 times out of 10, Jews who were funded by the New York Jewish banking establishment not only into and beyond the "revolution" but up to and including the entirety of the "cold war" between 'east' and 'west' which was puppet theater.
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