In June 2015, Asghar Bukhari, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee in the UK, misplaced one of his shoes. He immediately took to Facebook and blamed it on the Jews, asking, “ARE ZIONISTS TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME?” Bukhari claimed, “Someone came into my home yesterday while I was asleep. I don’t know how they got in, but they didn’t break in—the only thing they took was one shoe. Now think about that, the only thing they took was a single shoe—they left one shoe behind to let me know someone had been there.”
Where is the proof of this? There is none, but that does not stop conspiracy theorists. Bukhari continued, “Of course I can’t prove anything and that’s part of the intimidation.”
Bukhari finished by pleading his followers to “Share this widely, for if it is happening to me, I am sure it is happening to many, many others who have not exposed it.” While his rant was shared widely, it was mostly to mock him with the hashtag #MossadStoleMyShoe, in which the Mossad is an entity in the Israeli Intelligence Community that is responsible for intelligence collection.
This incident demonstrates why anti-semitism is so prevalent, even in communities with no Jews. Influential people like Bukhari, who is the founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee in the UK, are considered smart and credible. However, they are not immune to prejudice, and they can use their platform to promote their prejudices like Bukhari did in his Facebook post. In addition, an idea central to anti-semitism is that the Jews control everything by proxy. This means that even in places where Jews are a minority, Jews run society because they use other people in order to maintain control. Of course, there is no proof of this, but conspiracy believers respond by explaining that just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Actually, the fact that you can’t see the Jewish plot to control the world is all part of their plan for world domination. Therefore, people around the world who may not even know any Jewish people can blame their failings on the Jews.
The fact that people have the audacity to blame Jews for themselves misplacing a belonging. If you lose one shoe and your reaction is to say that someone broke into your house and took only that one shoe just in spite of you is both hilarious and terrifying. Hilarious because it seems funny to think someone broke into your house just to take one shoe. It is terrifying because this was said by a public figure who had a following that believe every word he would say.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that a single lost shoe is psychological intimidation seems ridiculous, especially considering how often people misplace things. While frivolous, this post shows how small things can quickly escalate into something bigger. If people are willing to believe that a shoe is part of a globalist conspiracy, where does the slippery slope stop? If people truly believe in the globalist conspiracy, even if Bukharin were to find his shoe again, they could reason that this was just another way for the Jews to control him as they would make him look like a fool and convince others that they are not in control.
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