Iranian demonstrators in front of United Nations office in Tehran following the death of Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike, Jan. 3, 2020. Photo: Nazanin Tabatabaee / WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters / File.

The assassination of Iranian Quds Force head Qassem Soleimani in a US air strike last week has led to a proliferation of antisemitic conspiracy theories by American white supremacists, far-left antisemites and the Iranian media, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warned on Thursday.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement, “For now, these conspiracies are limited to the extremist fringe, where antisemites typically look to any major world event as justification for their bigoted views.”

“Our concern is this steady drumbeat of anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric may contribute to an environment in which more overtly antisemitic beliefs take root and move from the fringes into the mainstream,” he added.

The ADL listed some of the conspiracists, such as white supremacist Hunter Wallace, who said the Soleimani killing was the beginning of “World War Jew” in which Jewish donors to the Republican party were engineering “a Jewish war with Iran.”

Kevin MacDonald, an important formulator of white supremacist ideology and author of several pseudo-academic antisemitic books, said those supporting the strike wanted “a non-White US while once again Israel is getting the US to fight its war.”

Notorious antisemite and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke said the assassination was a result of “Zio US traitors” and praised Soleimani for supposedly protecting Syrian Christians.

“The real evil is the Zionist Warmongers who are leading Trump & America into HELL!” he exclaimed.

Some of the statements highlighted by the ADL were particularly vulgar, with Paul Nehlen writing, “The kikes who own Orange Man were gonna have their war with Iran one way or another.”

On the left, when President Donald Trump tweeted an American flag following Soleimani’s death, anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Max Blumenthal replied, “You misspelled the Israeli flag.”

On the far-left website CounterPunch, Jefferson Morley wrote. “Trump has now fulfilled the wishes of Mossad,” the Israeli intelligence agency.

The intensely anti-Zionist Philip Weiss, who runs the website Mondoweiss, said Trump was using the strike to gain campaign contributions from wealthy Jews: “Look who is pleased by the attack, Israel. No doubt Sheldon Adelson, Trump’s biggest donor at well over $100 million to Republican causes, is also pleased by the strike.”

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who has been accused of antisemitism several times, tweeted, “Guaranteed: Trump’s @POTUS statement about Soleimani and Iran was written in Israel. ALL LIES. @realDonaldTrump Zionist puppet.”

On Iran’s English-language state media outlet Press TV, several antisemites were interviewed. Gordon Duff claimed Ivanka Trump, who is Jewish, was “placed next to Trump as his Israeli handler” and ordered him to kill Soleimani.

Another interviewee, E. Michael Jones, said the strike was undertaken because “the Jews want Iran to attack America” to foment a US-Iran war “for Israel.”