Compared to Europe, where antisemitism and attacks on Jews are sharply on the rise, and 40 percent or more of populations view Israel as a country committing genocide, America shines. Polls find levels of antisemitism to be much lower, and the latest Gallup poll in February found sympathy for Israel tying a previous all-time high of 64% (with only 12% supporting the Palestinians).

That is not to say, though, the problem does not exist. The FBI’s recently released Hate Crime Statistics report for 2012 found Jews by far the number 1 target of hate crimes in the country; 62.4 percent of reported anti-religious hate crimes were against Jews (compared to 11.6 percent against Muslims).

This was, of course, before the rise of the “knockout game” that victimizes Jews and others. The Anti-Defamation League also criticized the FBI’s report as “seriously flawed” because one-fourth of the country’s law-enforcement agencies did not turn in their numbers.

The ADL’s own recently released poll finds that 12 percent of Americans “harbor deeply entrenched anti-Semitic attitudes,” down from 15 percent in 2011 and 29 percent in 1964. The ADL found antisemitism to be most prevalent among African Americans and Hispanics, and noted:

• Hispanics born outside of the U.S. are significantly more likely than Hispanics born in the U.S. to hold anti-Semitic views.

• Anti-Semitic propensities within the African-American population continue to be higher than the general population, but are in decline.

• The steady growth of the U.S. Hispanic population—now at 15 percent of the adult population—means that Hispanics, combined with African Americans (12 percent), now comprise 27 percent of the American population, a number that is sure to grow in the coming years. This population increase of the most anti-Semitic cohorts also means that it will be an ongoing challenge to reduce overall anti-Semitic propensities.

Those who remain intent on spreading antisemitism in America most often make claims of excessive Jewish (and Israeli) power that are rooted in classic antisemitism. Some are fringe characters, cranks, who nevertheless reach considerable audiences; others are more mainstream figures. This series will consider both types, eventually focusing more on the latter category since their social prominence and acceptability make them the more significant hate purveyors.

Among those who want to turn America from a tolerant democracy to an outpost of hatred is Gordon Duff, editor of the website Veterans Today. While the name, as the ADL notes (in an article not currently available on their site), sounds innocuous, Veterans Today actually,

features anti-Israel and Holocaust denial materials. The site also offers a platform for numerous columnists who promote anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories, as well as Duff’s own screeds.

Although Duff describes himself on the site as “a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War,” he is not much of a patriot. In a July 2010 article he claimed it was a “team of Israeli intelligence agents” who remotely guided the two planes into the Twin Towers—in cahoots with “top members of America’s military.”

A few months earlier, in March 2010, Duff ran a column that included an interview with one of Veterans Today’s star contributors, Alan Sabrosky. Duff himself wrote that “the Israeli lobby [is] the most powerful and ruthless group in the world,” then endorsed Sabrosky’s view that 9/11 could never have happened “without the full resources of both the CIA and Mossad….”

Although it would be nice to dismiss Duff as a peripheral crank, his site is well trafficked and, as the ADL observes, his and Sabrosky’s articles

have been widely circulated, picked up by the conspiracy press, the extreme right press, and elsewhere, including Islamic media sources in the United States.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog quotes another of Duff’s contributors, J.B. Campbell, who opined:

Since Jews control every important aspect of our lives through banking, finance, law, war, food & drugs and entertainment, we are literally floating on a reservoir of truth blocked by a dam of lies…. The Jews have poisoned our minds for a long time, certainly for all the time that we’ve been alive.

What actually poisons minds is sludge written by vicious people, and lamentably there is still a lot of it around. More recently Duff and his friends have found a new home: Iran’s English-language, satellite news network known as Press TV.

Duff, his columnists, and other stalwarts of hate like David Duke display their patriotism by appearing often on this outlet of the “Death to America,” “Death to Israel” regime, responsible for the killing of thousands of Americans and others in terror attacks. They spew venomous anti-American, anti-Israeli, and antisemitic propaganda to audiences all over the world including North America, Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

For instance, on December 18 last year, in a rant called “Israeli death squads involved in Sandy Hook bloodbath: Intelligence analyst,” Duff sounded his favorite theme on Press TV:

Thus the world (and Americans in particular) is having to come to terms with the nasty evidence that, in order to further Zionist interests by initiating a general war against Islam, the CIA and Mossad were heavily involved in the murder of three thousand Americans.

And just last October 1, in another harangue on this network called “Israel lobby responsible for US shutdown,” Duff said:

[Israel] loves the image of having this great superpower basically strolling around town like a dog on a leash with Israel holding onto that leash. All of this of course is something that is done in a wink wink nod nod fashion between the United States and Israel.

Especially considering Press TV’s reach, this is dangerous, incendiary stuff, not far removed from the Lord Haw Haw phenomenon of anti-British Britons broadcasting English-language propaganda for the Nazi regime in World War II. Presumably U.S. law enforcement is—at least—aware of Duff. Keeping him and his like confined to their fetid swamps is, indeed, an “ongoing challenge.”