US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published a lengthy and strongly worded post on X over the weekend defending Israel and the Jewish people, attacking the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamism, and accusing Iran and Gulf states of financing anti-Israel propaganda.
The post, which runs to approximately 3,700 words, came in response to criticism of Kennedy's remarks about the scientific achievements of Arab countries over recent decades.
Kennedy argued that major US media outlets had taken his comments out of context and portrayed them as racist and Islamophobic. He insisted that his criticism was not directed at Arabs or Islam as a whole, but at political Islamism, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.
"My speech was not a critique of Arabs or Islam, but of Islamism," Kennedy wrote. He described Islamism as "a toxic ideology conceived and promoted by the terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood."
"Criticizing Islamism is neither Islamophobic nor racist," he added.
Kennedy noted that the Muslim world had experienced periods of significant scientific and cultural flourishing in the past, when Muslim scholars made major contributions to medicine, mathematics, philosophy and other fields.
However, he argued that the rise of extremist Islamist movements had undermined freedom of thought, research and scientific progress. He accused the Muslim Brotherhood of promoting an ideology hostile to democracy, women's rights, freedom of expression and Western values.
To illustrate his argument, Kennedy cited figures highlighting the gap in scientific achievements between Arab countries and other nations. Among other examples, he claimed that Japan registered more than 300,000 patents in 2024, while several Arab countries combined registered fewer than 10,000.
Kennedy then turned to a comparison with the Jewish people, emphasizing that Jews make up just 0.2% of the world's population but have made contributions to science, medicine, economics and culture far beyond their proportion of the population.
"There is no ethnic or religious group that has contributed more than Jews to the welfare of humanity or to the advancement of liberal democracy," he wrote.
He said Jews had received approximately 22% of all Nobel Prizes awarded since 1901. He cited a number of prominent Jewish scientists and inventors, including Albert Einstein and the developers of the polio vaccines, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, as well as researchers whose work helped shape modern medicine.
Kennedy also highlighted Jewish contributions to technology and business, mentioning the founders of Google, Meta and other leading technology companies, alongside Jewish contributions to the film industry, culture and philanthropy.
He then drew a sharp contrast between the Jewish people and the actions of radical Islamists.
"Now, here are some things that Jews don’t do: suicide bombings, rape gangs, beheading people, killing gay people, aspiring to kill all non-Muslims, forcing young girls to wed older men, lynching women for wearing makeup or showing hair, female mutilation, religious dictatorship, Christian genocide, polygamy, rioting and burning down cities, applying the death penalty for leaving Islam, cooking babies in ovens, hijacking airliners (and driving them into buildings), bombing buses and crowded restaurants, disfiguring girls with acid for failing to wear the hijab, operating modern slave markets where hereditary Black slaves are bought and sold by Arabs, advocating global jihad, and committing 90% of the terrorist acts globally," Kennedy wrote.
He went on to pose a pointed question: "Why does the world hate Jews and embrace Islamists?"
He argued that the answer lay in a sophisticated propaganda operation that ignored facts and turned reality on its head in an effort to portray Israel as the world's enemy.
Kennedy claimed that hatred of Jews and Christians was a central element of Islamist ideology, and that in the West it was often disguised as opposition to Zionism and concern for the Palestinian cause.
"Only in the West does Jew hatred pretend to require the alibi of Palestine or hide behind anti-Zionism," he wrote.
He also addressed the disappearance of Jewish communities from Arab countries. According to Kennedy, approximately 750,000 Jews lived in Arab countries in 1948, while almost none remain there today.
Kennedy even used the Nazi German term "Judenrein," meaning "cleansed of Jews," to describe the situation in those countries. He accused the international community of ignoring the persecution of Jews and other minorities across the Middle East.
A substantial portion of the post was devoted to praising Israel, which Kennedy presented as an extraordinary economic and technological success despite its difficult starting conditions and ongoing security threats.
He argued that Israel had transformed desert and swamp land into a prosperous country and built a democratic society in which Jews and Arabs can vote, practice their faith and participate in the country's institutions.
He highlighted Israel's achievements in agriculture, economics and technology, describing it as "a robust and heroic outpost for freedom and Western values."
By contrast, Kennedy launched a fierce attack on Hamas, accusing the terrorist organization of turning the Gaza Strip into a "death cult" rather than using international assistance to develop the territory and improve the lives of its residents.
"If you want to understand the Muslim Brotherhood's vision for society, look no further than Gaza. Hamas, which rules Gaza, is the Palestine branch of the Muslim Brotherhood," he wrote.
"Instead of building a nation, Hamas has transformed Gaza into a death cult wallowing in victimhood, nursing grievances, addicted to violence, resentments, and yearning for a seventh-century miasma."
Kennedy accused Hamas of pouring enormous resources into building tunnels, acquiring weapons and developing military capabilities while suppressing Gaza's civilian population and violating its rights.
He also accused the organization of indoctrinating Palestinian children with hatred of Jews from an early age, using civilians as human shields and placing weapons in schools and hospitals.
"Hamas nurses Palestinian infants from birth on genocidal hatred of ALL Jews-not just Zionists-and indoctrinates children in the savagery and unspeakable barbarism that the world witnessed on October 7," he wrote.
Kennedy argued that one of Hamas's greatest sources of strength was its propaganda apparatus, along with its willingness to inflict enormous suffering on the Palestinian population in pursuit of its objectives.
He also accused Iran and Gulf states of financing an international propaganda campaign against Israel. He claimed that the flow of money into the operation since the 1990s had turned it into a propaganda machine of unprecedented power, comparing it to the Nazi propaganda apparatus of Joseph Goebbels.
"Joseph Goebbels and an army of Nazi and ex-Nazi propagandists built the Muslim Brotherhood's powerful propaganda machine in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s," Kennedy wrote.
"The massive influx of money from Iran and the Gulf States starting in the 1990s turned this operation into an amplifier of unmatched power that makes Goebbels look like a piker."
He argued that the propaganda campaign had persuaded many in the West that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, while diverting attention from the persecution of minorities and acts of violence by Islamist regimes and organizations.
In the final section of his post, Kennedy warned against the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood in Western countries. He claimed that the organization was seeking to infiltrate political and social institutions through cooperation with left-wing movements, with the aim of advancing an ideology hostile to democracy and individual freedoms.
Kennedy also cited a 1991 document discovered by the FBI in 2004, which he said outlined the Muslim Brotherhood's strategy in the US as "a kind of gradual Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."
He concluded by warning about the influence of Islamism on Western society, presenting Israel and the contributions of the Jewish people as an opposing example of progress, freedom and human achievement.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/435465
