To a certain section of the internet invested in the business of hating Jews, every international incident is an opportunity to link them  to wrongdoing.

And the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is no exception.

Before Trump’s ear saw a single stitch, before even the body of the suspected shooter was retrieved from the roof from which he shot, right-wing trolls and influencers, whose online personas are based entirely around antisemitism were quick to toss around conspiracies and draw flimsy connections.

Never mind that Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while president, and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, or that under his term in office more normalisation agreements were signed between Israel and its neighbouring Arab countries than at any time in history: For those determined to view Jews as the masterminds of society’s supposed decline, truths like these may well make your job harder – but not impossible.

The antisemites’ first port of unreason is to assume the Jews planned and orchestrated the assassination attempt through a proxy because Trump was “not pro-Israel enough”. According to them, Trump, aware that such an action would spark World War Three, refused to capitulate entirely to the supposed dreams of Benjamin Netanyahu to occupy the West Bank.

For this, according to X/Twitter user Sam Parker, a failed one-time Republican candidate for the Utah Senate with over 140,000 followers, the Jews’ crosshairs were placed on Trump.

The “world Judeo-zio mafia financial empire” would swoop in and buy assets from formerly powerful countries after a new world war, according to Parker.

Sure, he’s pro-Israel, but he’s not write-your-name-on-a-bomb pro-Israel.

Or was Trump targeted over vague compliments he’s paid in the past to the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 initiative aims to reshape government to favour Christians and Christian values – “bad news” for Jews, who through hard work disproportionately hold positions of power and influence in the government, says the Gentile News Network.

Soon the conspiracists moved on to find some other way to blame the Jews and trawled through the internet to find any information on the shooter, 20-year-old Pennsylvania man Thomas Matthew Crooks, who had mounted a roof overlooking the rally with his father’s AR-15-style rifle.

Hundreds of users were quick to circulate unverified pictures of what they thought was Crooks wearing a kippah. They also claimed that Crooks’ parents identify as Jewish, attributing the assertion to a single bizarre article written by journalist Alisha Shrestha of the Southern Gospel Times, which provides no evidence for the claim at all.

 

Other terminally online users big and small pointed to an anonymously written post on the website 4Chan claiming to be written by the secret service sniper who killed Crooks. The post, which anyone in the world could have written but only a select few would believe at face value, said he had been ordered to stand down from shooting Crooks “for at least 3 minutes” despite seeing him armed and crawling on the roof through his scope.

Because, of course, his higher-ups are beholden to the Jews, who assigned this socially deranged and reportedly bullied young man with the task of sharpshooting the American president.

If that theory doesn’t stick with you, how about that the secret service sniper is himself Jewish and wanted Trump gone?

Finally, if all else fails, the secret service heads – whose near catastrophic security oversight led to the shooting – must surely be in on it.