The Goyim Defense League hung banners over a Los Angeles highway saying, “Honk if you know. Kanye is right about the Jews.”
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
In a version of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” a white supremacist group is publicly showing support for Kanye West, a black rapper and fashion designer who has been spouting antisemitic statements over the past few weeks.
Several members of the Goyim Defense League (GDL) hung banners over a Los Angeles highway Saturday saying, “Honk if you know. Kanye is right about the Jews,” and citing two New Testament verses interpreted as comparing Jews to Satan and the devil. The small group is also seen giving the Nazi salute.
According to watchdog StopAntisemitism, the GDL is also responsible for “dozens upon dozens of antisemitic flyer drops vilifying Jews across the country.” There have recently been several such incidents in Los Angeles and nearby Beverly Hills, with plastic-bagged missives thrown on lawns blaming Jews for everything from control over the media and the White House to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The head of the GDL, Jon Minadeo, is infamous in the Bay area for his conspiracy theories and diatribes against Jews on his Goyim TV website and other social networks. Last month, Minadeo was briefly detained and fined by Polish police after posing with a friend with signs in front of the gates to Auschwitz that said “Shoah the ADL,” referring to the veteran Jewish anti-discrimination organization, and personally insulting its head, Jonathan Greenblatt.
Black extremist groups such as the virulently antisemitic Nation of Islam (NOI) have joined the GDL in supporting West. According to the ADL, West has been an admirer of the organization for some two decades, joining its events several times, and senior members are now defending him in public.
Repeating past claims by West about “the Jewish gay mafia that controls hip-hop and has used hip-hop to socially engineer Black America,” one NOI Executive Council member, Wesley Muhammad, said that “Kanye West is speaking a lot of truth right now, and he’s triggering a very dangerous enemy,” the ADL reported.
West, who last year formally changed his moniker to Ye, with no surname, has gone on several recent rants in the media against Jews. Two weeks ago, he was suspended from Twitter after writing that he was going to go “death con 3” on Jewish people.
This followed an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, in which he said that former president Donald Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, had negotiated the Abraham Accords in order to “make money.”
On Wednesday, he defended his tweet with another interviewer, Piers Morgan. When asked if he regretted his statements, he smiled and said, “No! Absolutely not.”
West has since lost his longstanding relationship with fashion house Balenciaga, and the JP Morgan Bank that held his Yeezy clothing empire account has asked him to remove his account. Sports giant Adidas has also stated that its partnership with the controversial star was “under review,” although the two sides have had business-related problems before West’s antisemitic rants.