Ex-CIA spy Valerie Plame, who’s currently trying to crowdfund money to buy part of Twitter, has been dragged for retweeting an article that blames Jews for “driving America’s wars.” That was bad enough, but folks have also dug up another reshared article from the same source that was also anti-Semitic in tone. Here’s what happened to set off today’s controversy.
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910884546723196929
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910893481735757825
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910893826079723521
Plame, who has a Jewish grandfather, tends to tweet about politics and her legacy after being outed as a CIA spy. Once and a while, she’ll share an article on, say, building resilience in mid-life or books to read if you enjoy the works of Stephanie Meyer. But Buzzfeed has discovered at least one other instance when Plame has retweeted an article from the same site that published “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars,” Unz.com, which does have a reputation for occasionally publishing works that blame Jews for various ills.
The Anti-Defamation League notes of the site’s founder that while Ron Unz “does not appear to be an anti-Semite, he provides support to extreme anti-Israel ideologues and his writings resonate with and are regularly cited by anti-Semites.” Perhaps the same could be said of Plame, who claimed her Jewish heritage as proof that she is not anti-Semitic.
Plame has since apologized in a series of tweets while claiming that she only “skimmed” the article before sharing and now realizes, “There is so much there that’s problematic AF … I missed gross undercurrents to this article & didn’t do my homework on the platform this piece came from. Now that I see it, it’s obvious.”
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910914285311754240
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910914329138130944
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910914392811823105
https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910914629395795970
That might not be enough to placate Twitter, however.
(Via Buzzfeed & NY Daily News)