Assailant’s conspiracy theories

A man arrested for beating US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer after breaking into their San Francisco home in search of her, had spread the theory online that Jews are to blame for the war in Ukraine.

San Francisco police arrested David DePape on Friday after Paul Pelosi struggled with a home invader who was attacking him.

Paul Pelosi, 82, was hospitalised but is expected to recover. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington, DC, at the time.

A picture of DePape that emerged after police named him as the alleged attacker suggests he was actively engaged online with a slew of conspiracy theories, including ones about Pelosi, who has been a target of supporters of former US president Donald Trump, and about Jews.

One of two websites DePape apparently administered includes a category entitled “DaJewbs”, devoted to antisemitic conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial.

Numerous recent entries accuse Jews of being behind Russia’s war against Ukraine as a means of buying up the land.

“That’s some pretty sick Jewing going on if true,” said a post from Monday featuring an antisemitic caricature of a Jew. “Bomb the country into shit so the residents leave. Buy the land up for cheap.”

A post on Tuesday said, “The more Ukrainians die NEEDLESSLY the cheaper the land will be for Jews to buy up.”

There were also entries about Ye, the rapper formally known as Kayne West, who recently made antisemitic comments, and posts saying Jews helped finance Hitler’s political rise in Germany.

DePape, whom police said would be charged with attempted homicide and other crimes, joins a growing list of alleged perpetrators of attacks fuelled by conspiracy theories that spread online.

An alleged gunman who killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, in May ascribed to the “great replacement theory”, which posits that Jews are behind an effort to replace white people with immigrants of colour, as did a man identified as being the perpetrator of a recent shooting outside an LGBTQ bar in Slovakia. Both men called for the murder of Jews.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Saturday denounced the assault on Paul Pelosi.

“Shocked by the vicious attack on Paul Pelosi and relieved that my friend Speaker Pelosi, who welcomed me so kindly this week, is safe,” Herzog said in a statement.

“Attacks on elected officials and their families are attacks on democracy itself. On behalf of the people of Israel, praying for Paul’s recovery.”

JTA, TIMES OF ISRAEL, AGENCIES