Fox Business Host Lou Dobbs Uses Anti-Semitic Trope On George Soros
Lou Dobbs hosts “Lou Dobbs Tonight” at Fox Business Network Studios on December 13, 2018 in New York City. Image by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink September 12, 2019
Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs used an anti-Semitic trope to criticize Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros on Tuesday night.
Dobbs criticized Soros’s financial support of immigration advocacy organizations, claiming that the billionaire “work[s] against our laws—there are laws against illegal immigration—and to see his tentacles reach out into various non-government organizations and nonprofits that are working with everything from the Koch Brothers to the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
Rich Jews using their wealth to nefariously influence world events, as well as using the word “tentacles” to describe such far-reaching Jewish control, are both anti-Semitic tropes that were used by the Nazis and other Jew-haters.
Image by twitter
Dobbs’s guest for this segment was conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, who the day before had used another anti-Semitic trope to describe Soros, this time claiming without evidence that Soros had funded illegal immigration to the United States. Soros’s charitable foundation funds several groups that support legal counseling for immigrants, including those facing deportation.
Dobbs faced a similar controversy last November when a guest on his program criticized the “Soros-occupied State Department,” to which Dobbs did not offer any objections. Fox Business Network condemned the comment and pledged not to re-run the episode.
Soros is frequently the subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
