Ron Unz, Valerie Plame, and a Congressional Seat in New Mexico

by Hugh Fitzgerald

In 2018, the Anti-Defamation League published a scathing report on Ron Unz, a Californian billionaire of Jewish descent, who has become one of the leading purveyors of antisemitism in the United States. His Jewish background makes his addled viciousness, to some, that much more believable. He’s a favorite of David Duke and Kevin MacDonald.

Here is that ADL report:

Ron Unz, a California businessman and founder of the Unz Review website, whom ADL has written about previously and described as a funder of anti-Israel activists, has embraced hardcore anti-Semitism. In recent months Unz has denied the Holocaust, endorsed the claim that Jews consume the blood of non-Jews, and has claimed that Jews control the media, hate non-Jews, and worship Satan….

On July 30, Unz takes on two of the most well-known anti-Semitic incidents from the late 19th century and early 20th centuries: the arrest of Alfred Dreyfus, an innocent Jewish artillery officer who, in a well-documented outburst of anti-Semitism in France, was put on trial for treason in 1894; and the anti-Semitic lynching in 1915 of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman in Georgia who was convicted after a sham trial for the murder of a young girl who worked in his factory.

Unz attempts to justify the treason charges against Dreyfus, arguing that “Jews had been the leading culprits behind several huge financial scandals that impoverished large numbers of small investors” a few years before the Dreyfus incident and that “anti-Dreyfusards” were probably angry that “a Jewish military spy from a very wealthy family might be able to walk free using similar tactics.”

Unz similarly presumes that Frank was guilty and justifies his lynching by asserting that “the outpouring of popular anger against Frank was produced by the vast ocean of Jewish money …that was committed to the legal efforts to save the life of someone widely regarded as a brutal murderer,” and “the lynch-mob that hung Frank was viewed by the community as merely enforcing his official death sentence by extra-judicial means.”

On August 27, Unz published a long anti-Semitic essay about Holocaust denial. After reviewing the history of Holocaust denial very sympathetically and in remarkable detail, Unz concludes that: “it far more likely than not that the standard Holocaust narrative is at least substantially false, and quite possibly, almost entirely so.”

Unz’s long essays read as extended book reviews on anti-Semitic themes. Throughout, he takes care to note the anti-Semitic texts which he finds so compelling, and even provides digitized versions of these texts for the edification of his readers. Though he uses the works of others to help him make his points, and sometimes claims that he cannot vouch for the veracity of any particular point, there is no mistaking the blatant anti-Semitism that suffuses the articles in this series. Unz may enjoy claiming that he merely presents “alternative views” not covered by the mainstream media, but in fact, he is acting as a loudspeaker for vicious anti-Semitism.

Because Unz comes from a Jewish background, readers may find his many false assertions about Jews more believable.  Anti-Semites from David Duke to Kevin MacDonald have taken particular delight in Unz’s anti-Jewish views. His publication attracts far-right readers as well as some people in the mainstream.

The ADL has said all that need be said about this most peculiar specimen. There’s nothing left to add. But there is a kind of unsavory coda to the unsavory Bizarre Story of Ron Unz, and her name is Valerie Plame. You may remember her brief moment of fame: she was the vulgar blonde va-va-va-voom bombshell who was outed as a C.I.A. agent back in 2003, as apparent payback for her husband Joseph Wilson, a member of the Foreign Service, writing an article about his failure to find enriched yellowcake uranium in Niger that Saddam Hussein might have tried to obtain, and calling into question the legitimacy of going to war against Iraq.

Since leaving Washington, Plame and her late husband made their home in Santa Fe. And now she is running for Congress. She has built up quite a warchest, twice as large as that of her nearest competitor. She tells voters that because of her notoriety (or as she calls it, “fame”), her phone calls in Washington will be returned, and – here’s her doubtful assumption – that because of all those calls being returned, she’ll be able to get things done for her constituents. Once people find out about her antisemitic tweets, the only people returning her calls will be Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

Plame was recently given an adoring write-up in the Washington Post, that described her, as the New York Times Opinion writer Bari Weiss has noted, in glowing terms: “There we learn that Ms. Plame looks ‘astoundingly good, at 56, as if the high-altitude desert air has preserved her skin since the day she arrived here 12 years ago.’ Yet nowhere in the long article does the reader learn that two years ago, Ms. Plame tweeted an essay called ‘American Jews Are Driving America’s Wars’ by a man famous for his anti-Jewish conspiracy thinking on a website that flirts with Holocaust denial. She also shared an article that linked Israel to the Sept. 11 attacks. It somehow didn’t merit mention.”

Here’s a bit more detail on Valerie Plame’s Jewish problem, from the Jerusalem Post:

In 2017 she tweeted an article titled “America’s Jews are driving America’s Wars” which showed a photo of Bill Kristol. Challenged on the offensive headline and antisemitic tweet, she told people to “calm down, re-tweets don’t imply endorsements. Yes, very provocative, but thoughtful. Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.” She walked back that claim later and said she had “skimmed” the piece. However she has consistently been contradictory about the tweet, first claiming that the article was provocative and thoughtful, and then claiming that she had just skimmed it. The headline, “America’s Jews are driving America’s wars” is antisemitic. There is no “thoughtfulness” in it. And it doesn’t say “neocons,” a term that has been repackaged too often to mean “Jews.”

Then there is this from Business Insider:

“OK folks, look, I messed up. I skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest,” Wilson tweeted. “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.”

And this, from a follow-up article:

“I made a mistake and should not have retweeted that article,” Wilson said in an email. “I sincerely apologized. I was just so focused on the neocons lust for war: ‘If you liked the Iraq war, you’ll love an Iranian one.’”

She continued:

“On a personal note, one should not tweet while moving, 8 workmen are in a small space, the dog is going nuts, and kids are texting one asking for things they forgot for school. Social media very unforgiving.

I feel badly and will gladly shake the hand of anyone who has never made a mistake.”

This was not the first or second time, but one of many times when Valerie Plame has told us what she really thinks about Jews. She has a record of posting anitisemitic content online, as well as having been heard making jokes about “rich Jews.” Would she care to deny that? Is she hoping we will believe that, she just “messed up” because she’s “not perfect and makes mistakes”? What “mistakes” led her to tweet an article about Israelis dancing in celebration of the  World Trade Center attacks? What “mistake” did she make in tweeting an article about “America’s Jews” from The Unz Review, giving Ford’s The International Jew a run for its money?

If you are a resident of New Mexico, or if you know someone in New Mexico, I hope you will share this information with as many people as possible, to make sure that they do not vote for, and will work relentlessly against the candidacy of, Valerie Plame. Lady Caroline Lamb once described Lord Byron as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” The evidence will show — see above — that Ron Unz is mad, Valerie Plame is bad, and both are dangerous to know.

One more thing. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib would no doubt welcome Valerie Plame as a new member of “The Squad.” Please do your best to disappoint them.

First published in Jihad Watch.