TIRANA, Albania (JTA) — The massive daily street protests rocking this Balkan capital began May 31 as a public outpouring of anger against a $4 billion coastal resort proposed by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — and quickly snowballed into demands for the resignation of longtime Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Somewhere along the way, not-so-subtle displays of antisemitism have emerged alongside the political and environmental grievances, unprecedented in a country that has long taken pride in having saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

Posters have cropped up depicting Rama as a scowling Hasidic Jew, while others show maps of the country with slogans denouncing the creeping “Zionist takeover” of Albanian territory.

Organizers of the peaceful rallies insist they have nothing against Israel, Jews or Kushner’s father-in-law. They say their main target is Rama, 61, and increasingly, his archrival, 81-year-old Sali Berisha — leader of Albania’s main opposition party — who have together dominated Albanian politics ever since the fall of communism in 1990.

Yet trolls continue to blast fake news headlines and AI-generated videos via Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, such as one last week claiming that “Trump and Kushner are selling off the Albanian coastline to Jewish billionaires and the Israeli military.” Kushner, married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, is an observant Jew with strong ties to Israel.

Local observers blame Russia, Iran and Turkey for trying to sow unrest in the country, which is seeking membership in the European Union. Others call the antisemitism a false flag to discredit the protests.

Yet some of the antisemitic sentiment has jumped from social media to real life.

On Saturday night, a masked woman climbed over a wall separating the Israeli Embassy from one of Tirana’s main boulevards, removed the Israeli flag and ripped it apart as onlookers cheered. Both Rama and Berisha forcefully condemned the act, as did five of the protest’s key leaders and Galit Peleg, Israel’s top diplomat in Tirana.

“As ambassador of a democratic state, I believe in the Albanian people’s right to exercise their civic right to protest,” Peleg said on X. “Yet an act of this nature disgraces the Albanian people and their proud heritage.”

She called on foreign embassies in Tirana to join Rama and Berisha in publicly condemning the incident, “no matter what their government’s position is towards Israel.” But so far, not a single embassy has done so — and Peleg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “I’m not holding my breath.”

Still, the ambassador, who has been posted to Albania for nearly four years, sought to put the incidents in perspective. “This is not a protest against Jews because proportionally, it’s really only a small group trying to provoke the crowd with antisemitic messaging,” she said.

The civic uprising actually began in Zvërnec, a village on Albania’s Adriatic coastline southwest of Tirana, after security guards dragged away a man protesting the appearance of a barbed-wire fence at the construction site of Kushner’s proposed luxury development. That area, as well as the largely uninhabited island of Sazan, is part of Kushner’s planned hotel and resort complex, which he’s financing along with several leading Arab investors from the Gulf.

Protestors say the development will damage fragile, protected coastal areas and allege that Rama’s government allowed backroom deals that bypass environmental regulations in favor of international investors. The flamingo — one of several endangered bird species whose natural habitat could be destroyed by........

© The Times of Israel