Lionel Messi cries at the end of the World Cup final soccer match between Spain and Argentina in East Rutherford, N.J. on Sunday.Stephanie Scarbrough/The Associated Press
Lionel Messi, tears running down both cheeks, was being serenaded and celebrated by Argentina fans after his team dropped the ball (sorry) in the World Cup final against Spain. It was an unforgettable moment for the world’s greatest soccer player and the fans lucky enough to see his genius in the flesh and witness history.
In the afterglow of that emotional moment, social media served up a friend-of-a-friend’s response to the Argentina loss: “Goodbye to Messi, the Mossad mole.”
Huh?
This is how, retroactively, I was introduced to the antisemitic conspiracy theories floating around about Mr. Messi – who is not, it seems relevant to state, Jewish.
This wasn’t merely the simplistic made-for-social-media narrative that the game was a proxy for the Middle East conflict. That Spain, with its support for a Palestinian state and vocal criticism of Israel, represented the Palestinians. Also, its star teenaged phenom Lamine Yamal had hoisted a Palestinian flag after an FC Barcelona title win in May. And that Argentina represented Israel – in part because Mr. Messi had visited the Western Wall in 2013 when he was with FC Barcelona (shaking hands with Benjamin Netanyahu on that trip), but also because under its current leadership, Argentina has emerged as an ally of Israel’s.
Never mind that Mr. Messi was there for a “Peace Tour,” which also saw his team travel to the West Bank, meet with Palestinian leaders and teach soccer to Palestinian children.
(Also never mind that Argentina provided safe harbour to Nazis after the Second World War, including, infamously, Adolf Eichmann. Then again, Spain kicked all the Jews out in the 1400s or forced them to convert, also targeting Muslims during the Inquisition.)
Nor was this that other conspiracy theory: that FIFA wanted Argentina in the final because what a story, so refs made some strange calls to get them there, including in Argentina’s opener against Algeria, which reportedly filed a complaint with FIFA about the refereeing – in particular, Mr. Messi not being carded for a tackle on Algeria’s captain.
‘Nothing was handed to us,’ Messi says to critics ahead of World Cup final
These conspiracy theories go something like this: Mr. Messi is controlled by the Jews, the Jews control the world, and it is they who were manipulating the outcome of these games.
The social media watchdog CyberWell, a nonprofit that combats the online spread of antisemitism (so it must be very busy these days) reports that posts in English, Arabic and French were using the World Cup to spread conspiracy theories that Jews secretly control FIFA, governments, the media and the world.
This wasn’t just Protocols of the Elders of Zion-esque. This was the Protocols playbook, invoking the infamous antisemitic forgery to claim that Jews use sports and entertainment to distract societies, manipulate public opinion and conceal control over world affairs. Jews were portrayed as “secretive, manipulative and responsible for orchestrating global events.”
Another recurring narrative in these posts was that Jews as a whole were responsible for the catastrophe in Gaza.
CyberWell alerted social-media platforms in late June that this was happening – notably after that Algeria game, when posts claimed that Mr. Messi was Jewish and cited the outcome as evidence that Jews were pulling strings from behind the scenes.
“When these narratives are repeatedly amplified on digital platforms, they reinforce this corrosive conspiracy theory as mainstream conversation,” said CyberWell founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor in a statement from Tel Aviv.
It’s one thing to lose your mind over a soccer tournament – healthy, even, to immerse yourself in sports and take a breather from the horrors of the world. But this lunacy is evidence of a world infected by antisemitism: where even a good news story – the astonishing prowess of a once-in-a-lifetime player – gets squished into a crazed antisemitic conspiracy theory. Even though the guy is not even Jewish.
“Football unites the world,” the FIFA motto goes.
Not quite, reality has responded.
After an Israeli politician complained about Mr. Lamal hoisting the Palestinian flag last spring, claiming that this fostered hatred, Spain’s Prime Minister countered that those who consider waving a national flag to be hatred had either “lost their minds or have been blinded by ignominy.”
There’s a lot of that going around.
It is impossible, especially in this climate, to hold a sports tournament in a vacuum, completely divorced from the politics of the day. But this – using the World Cup to spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and in the process, demean its greatest player – is so messed up. A beautiful game used for such an ugly purpose.