Elon Musk visited Israel on Monday, meeting with leaders and touring through a kibbutz destroyed by Hamas last month in an attempt to quell criticism over his support for an anti-Semitic remark on his social media platform, X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drove Musk to Kfar Azza, one of the kibbutzim targeted on October 7. Abigail Edan, a four-year-old American dual citizen kidnapped by the militant group that day and released the next day, lived on the kibbutz.
Musk agreed with Netanyahu in a live online conversation on X on Monday that Israel must eliminate Hamas.
“Those who intend to murder must be stopped. The propaganda must then cease,” Musk stated. “They’re just training people to be murderers.”
He also stated that Gaza must be “prosperous.”
“If (all) that happens, I think it will be a good future,” he said. “I’d love to help.”
Musk also met behind closed doors with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
According to a readout from the meeting, Herzog pushed Musk to combat internet antisemitism.
“Unfortunately, we are inundated with antisemitism, which is hatred of Jews,” Herzog said in a statement. “I think we need to fight this together, because the platforms you lead, unfortunately, have a large reservoir of hatred, hatred of Jews, antisemitism.”
According to an earlier statement from the president’s office, representatives from the families of Hamas hostage families attended the meeting to express “the horrors of the Hamas terror attack, as well as the ongoing pain and uncertainty for those held captive.”
According to the Israeli government press office, Israeli officials recounted what had happened to Musk during the visit to the damaged kibbutz.
“The prime minister and Musk then proceeded to the Edan family home, where Musk heard about the family story of four-year-old Abigail Edan, whose parents were murdered and who was kidnapped to Gaza and released yesterday from Hamas captivity,” the office of the prime minister said.
The billionaire’s trip to Israel comes less than a week after he agreed with the notion that Jewish communities incite “hatred against Whites,” prompting a condemnation from the White House and a significant departure of advertisers from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
One user accused Jewish groups earlier this month in an X post of “pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The message allegedly alluded to “hordes of minorities” invading Western countries, a common antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Musk responded, “You have said the actual truth.”
Online hate organizations have promoted the antisemitic conspiracy idea that Jews intend to import illegal minority populations into Western countries to diminish the White majority in such countries.
Musk then stated in subsequent posts that he does not believe hatred of White people extends “to all Jewish communities.”
However, he claimed that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a global anti-antisemitism group, “unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel.” This is because, according to their own beliefs, they cannot attack the minority groups that constitute their major threat.”
The remarks, which coincide with an increase in hate crimes against Jews and Muslims in the United States, attracted rapid condemnation from human rights organizations and politicians.
Musk has also disputed racist accusations, writing on X last week that any assertions that he is antisemitic are “far from the truth.”
The problem is becoming too tough for X to ignore. The controversy has quickly developed into a serious business nightmare for the corporation, with at least a dozen large brands suspending advertising spending as of last Wednesday. Disney, IBM, Fox Sports, and even the European Commission are among them.
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Elon Musk visited Israel on Monday, meeting with leaders and touring through a kibbutz destroyed by Hamas last month
Even before the present upheaval, X had been chastised for the abundance of antisemitic content on their network. Organizations like as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate had documented a spike in hate speech on X in the previous year, which Musk either criticized or disputed.
Musk vowed to sue the ADL for defamation in September, alleging that the group’s reports had damaged advertising sales on X.
More recently, the organization has observed a significant spike in antisemitic posts on X, notably after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in early October.
X has responded to similar charges made by the progressive media watchdog Media Matters, which highlighted antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X in a previous analysis.
In response, X has sued Media Matters, claiming that the organization overstated the likelihood of adverts running alongside extremist content on the platform. It has also asked its advertising partners to assist in defending what it refers to as “freedom of speech.”
Musk’s visit to Israel coincides with a cessation of hostilities with Hamas. In the first three days of a truce, Hamas released 58 captives, mostly women and children, in exchange for the release of 117 Palestinian prisoners and has stated that it intends to extend the truce.
Herzog spoke to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Sunday about the bittersweet sensation of seeing freed prisoners reunited with their families.
“It’s something that gives us happiness, but of course, happiness with a lot of sorrow in it because there are at least 200 hostages still held out there,” Herzog told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Herzog said the truce may be prolonged, citing the initial agreement that a day of ceasefire would be added for every ten hostages released, but that it was up to Hamas to liberate more prisoners.
SOURCE – (CNN)
