An Afrikaner Refugee Has Thoughts About the Jews
The Trump administration is clear: Antisemitism from brown people will not be tolerated.
It’s a Very Special Triad today, cowritten with my buddy Will Sommer, author of our False Flag newsletter. —JVL
1. White Genocide?
Quick catchup: This week the State Department sent an official to Dulles International Airport to welcome a group of 59 white Afrikaner refugees from South Africa. At a moment when the Trump administration is limiting refugee status for people fleeing Afghanistan, Venezuela, and other countries, this was a notable case of the president and his team going out of their way to welcome new immigrants.
What was different about these Afrikaners? Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau explained that these refugees “could be assimilated easily into our country.”
It’s all very legal and very cool. After all, the law does give the secretary of state great discretion as to whom he chooses to allow into the country.
So meet one of our new refugees: Charl Kleinhaus.
Mr. Kleinhaus was part of this initial tranche of 59 Afrikaners. He has two thumbs, a Twitter account, and a lot of opinions.
Most of his opinions are garden-variety MAGA. Despite being a South African citizen, about half of Kleinhaus’s tweets are about the greatness of Donald Trump; how awesome Teslas are; and the woke mind virus (he’s against it).1
But there’s also some . . . other stuff.
2. The Jews
In one case, Kleinhaus advocated for physical assault on an American citizen. Retweeting a story about a guy who had been given a citation for his part in a road-rage incident with another driver, Kleinhaus wrote, “He needs a beating urgently!” (Kleinhaus was upset because the other driver involved in the incident was driving a Tesla.)
But most importantly, Kleinhaus has also posted about Jews and Israel in the kind of way that might get someone who wasn’t a white South African deported—calling Jews “untrustworthy” and “dangerous.”
In April 2023, Kleinhaus responded to video of Christians scuffling with Israeli police on the way to the Church of the Nativity by saying Jews are naturally “untrustworthy.”
On October 7, 2023, Kleinhaus responded to the initial news of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel by posting a link to an Al Jazeera video, taken a few days earlier, of Orthodox Israelis spitting on Christians.
Five days after the October 7th attack, Kleinhaus posted a link to another video, hosted by a Facebook account called “Israel Is a Terrorist State,” that showed clashes between Christians and Israeli police. Kleinhaus wrote: “Jews attacking Christians!”
In a LinkedIn message to The Bulwark, Kleinhaus confirmed that this is his X account. Kleinhaus, who has resettled in Buffalo, said he was too busy filling out paperwork today to comment further. We also reached out to the State Department about this story but have not yet heard back. [Update (May 14, 2025, 5:00 p.m. EDT): In reply to our inquiries, a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security comments: DHS “vets all refugee applicants. Any claims of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and appropriate action will be taken as necessary. DHS does not comment on individual application status.”]
What kind of treatment would the U.S. government give Kleinhaus if he weren’t an Afrikaner? Consider that the Department of Homeland Security announced last month that it would consider “antisemitic activity on social media” as grounds for denying an immigration request.
Or that Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued in court that Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil should be deported, even though his criticism of Israel was lawful, because “condoning anti-Semitic conduct” would undermine American foreign policy.
Maybe the difference is that Kleinhaus is ostentatiously Christian—his feed is full of retweeted Bible verses, Christian exhortations, and memes of Trump walking with angels.
Or maybe the difference is that he’s white. Who can say. It’s a mystery!
Puzzle away at the eternal mysteries with us. Because the only way we’re getting through this shirt is together.
3. Sliding Scales
Regardless: The point here isn’t that Kleinhaus should be denied refugee status. His claims of persecution and endangerment in his homeland should be adjudicated fairly. Immigrants make America great, after all. And even though Kleinhaus is not an American citizen, our First Amendment protects him: He is entitled to his opinions and shouldn’t be discriminated against just because, uh, he thinks Jews are “untrustworthy” and “not God’s chosen.”
This isn’t about Charl Kleinhaus.
It’s about the Trump administration showing us—very clearly—that none of its stated concerns about the “antisemitic activity” and opinions of other classes of immigrants are real.
It’s all just cover for getting rid of, you know, the wrong kind of people.
Which, when you think about it, is as American as apple pie. Maybe he can be assimilated into our country easily.
He’s also against vaccines, in favor of guns, and seems to like UFC.
Anyone who thinks Trump actually cares about Jews is a moron. He cares about nothing except himself.
Let’s be very clear here; there are two kinds of anti-Semitism in the world.
There’s the kind of anti-Semitism that consists of saying that a tiny persecuted religion somehow is a world-dominating conspiracy that is responsible for everything bad in the world. And there’s the kind of anti-Semitism that consists of saying that Muslims have rights to life, liberty, and property even if they physically resemble, live near, or are related by blood to terrorists.
For my entire adult life, the Republican Party (and the ADL and AIPAC) has winked at the first kind of anti-Semitism because they saw it as a useful ally against the real threat, the second kind of anti-Semitism. It shouldn’t surprise us that they’re now moving to celebrating the first kind. It has, after all, proven a very reliable ally against the second.