Antisemitism's Sharp Left Turn
An Open Letter to My Left-of-Center Friends
NOTE: Bastiat’s Window usually focuses on economics, health, science, ethics, and culture. After one or two more posts on the Middle East, we’ll return to those topics. Through January 1, 2024, half of all paid subscription revenue will go to the Magen David Adom (Israel’s Red Cross). Since October 25, subscriptions have raised nearly $3,000.
To My Friends on the Left:
You’ve told me countless times over many years that antisemitism is almost exclusively a right-wing phenomenon, but events since October 7 indicate strongly that a far greater threat to the happiness, health, and safety of Jews comes from your left-wing allies. While Hamas was still live-streaming acts of rape, torture, mutilation, murder, kidnapping, and necrophilia on innocents; before Israel lifted a finger in response; throngs of your allies flooded streets, campuses, airwaves, and social media to rejoice. Still more of your friends hung their heads low to avoid offending the celebrants, who are vital components of your electoral base. A modest number of courageous souls on the left have sounded the alarm that when mobs cry out for the torment of Jews, the call is coming from inside the progressive house.
I’ve never disputed nor minimized your concern over right-wing antisemitism. But when I’ve offered that leftist antisemitism is as big a problem or bigger, your response has been a ballet of head-scratching, shoulder-shrugging, brow-furrowing, eye-rolling, arm-waving, face-reddening, and body-shaking—with wails of indignation.
After two months of depravity across the West, it’s obvious that the greater problem today lies on the left. Right-wing antisemitism today comes mostly in two forms: (1) off-putting remarks and irritating attitudes by otherwise normal people who have little or no particular power over Jewish lives, and (2) wild-eyed conspiracies and episodic violence by small numbers of marginal loners. Left-wing antisemitism, in sharp contrast, is highly organized and endemic among swarms of people endowed with considerable power over the daily lives of Jewish Americans.
Right-wing antisemites hold little sway over conservative politicians, while left-wing antisemites have an electoral hammerlock over many left-of-center politicians. The opposite may have been true in the 1930s, 1950s, or 1970s, but those days are long gone. (Even back then, antisemitism was present across the spectrum.) Below, dozens of bulleted descriptions illustrate the gravity of left-wing antisemitism today.
(For those wondering where I stand politically, I often describe myself as a “classical liberal” or a “libertarian-leaning conservative/conservative-leaning libertarian with a sprinkling of liberal.” I vote for both Democrats and Republicans, all too often on a lesser-of-two-evils basis.)
In reading the bullets below, it’s important to note that people differ over what constitutes antisemitism. In addition, it is sometimes hard to differentiate far-left from far-right, as fanatics are often philosophically incoherent and inconsistent.
I think all 64 bullets below suggest leftist antisemitism, but you apply your own filters to each one. Ask yourself whether a particular bullet describes antisemitism or something else (“antizionism,” “anticolonialism,” etc.). Ask whether the perpetrators are primarily on the left. If so, ask whether similar threats emanate from the right.
The final segment of this essay briefly argues why right-wing antisemitism today does not pose the same magnitude of threat as left-wing antisemitism.
Let’s note the good news: some left-of-center politicians and pundits are calling out the antisemitism among their allies. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer addressed the problem in an emotional Senate speech for which he should be saluted. But his address was merely Step 1 in a very long 12-step program. He and his colleagues have yet to tackle the fact that the most virulent antisemitism today flows directly from contemporary liberalism’s innocuous-sounding but deeply corrosive pieties: the neo-eugenics of critical race/legal/educational theory, intersectionality, “antiracism,” “anticolonialism,” and oppressor/oppressed dichotomies. These, in turn, have spawned a massive industry of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs; boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) demands; and calls for monetary and nonmonetary reparations—all of which require someone in power to taxonomize and judge people on the basis of immutable characteristics, rather than on their individual actions.
Left-of-center politicians condemn left-wing antisemitism
Senator Schumer’s speech included the following: “Many of the people who have expressed these sentiments in America aren’t neo-Nazis, or card-carrying Klan members, or Islamist extremists … They are in many cases people that most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a member of the House Progressive Caucus, wrote: “The time has come to confront not only the symptoms but the disease: a Democratic Socialist industrial complex that indoctrinates young Americans with an anti-Israel hatred so virulent that it renders them indifferent to the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) renounced his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America over its promotion of what he said was an antisemitic rally in New York City.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) quit the House progressive caucus over its attitude toward Israel. Frankel was one of only 22 Democrats in the U.S. House who voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib for using the exterminationist phrase, “From the River to the Sea,” and for falsely and knowingly accusing Israel of bombing a Gaza Hospital.
Left-of-Center pundits are sounding the alarms, too
Joshua Zeitz, historian and one-time Democratic Congressional candidate, wrote: "Anti-Israel Progressives Are Handing Liberal Jews an Impossible Decision, Just Like in 1967."
A New York Times piece declared, “On Israel, Progressive Jews Feel Abandoned by Their Left-Wing Allies” and said “they were taken aback to discover that many of their ideological allies not only failed to perceive the same threats but also saw them as oppressors deserving of blame.”
At The Daily Beast: “As Antisemitism Surges, Jews Find Few Social Justice Allies.”
At The Liberal Patriot, Peter Juul writes: “The Return of the Indecent Left: How the war between Israel and Hamas resuscitated an ignoble tradition.”
Democratic Party political analyst Ruy Texeira wrote that it’s “Time to Throw the Intersectional Left Under the Bus!” … “The failure to unequivocally condemn the Hamas massacre as a crime against humanity is just the latest example of this intellectual and moral malignancy.”
Some left-of-center celebrities have also spoken out
Comedian Sarah Silverman said: the Democratic Socialists of America “of which I was a proud lifetime member, has lost me forever.” After the DSA expressed solidarity with Hamas, Silverman commented: “Over 1000 slaughtered as of now. Girls raped over the bodies of their friends. These are kids, babies, children, teens, elderly, many of whom like my family march in the streets nightly protesting Netanyahu and the occupation THAT’S WHO HAMAS MURDERED you FUCKS.”
Actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen told TikTok executives: “What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis.”
Stand-up comedienne Iliza Shlesinger described: “anger that many progressives fail to acknowledge Jewish suffering and marginalization.”
Singer Pink slammed an anti-Chanukah commenter on social media.
Some progressive rabbis have also weighed in
L.A. Rabbi Joel Simonds said: “many liberal Jews feel abandoned by people they thought were friends, some of whom have expressed little sympathy for the Israelis killed while focusing instead on the plight of Palestinians.”
L.A. Rabbi Sharon Brous said: some fellow progressives believe, “these Israeli victims somehow deserved this terrible fate.”
Along with left-leaning academicians
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, wrote: “I am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks. … I was stunned when students across the country, including mine, immediately celebrated the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on October 7.”
For a change, read some sane, sober voices on the right
In the most stunning speech in recent days, journalist Bari Weiss wrote: “Look at your enemies and your allies. … And I say this more to myself than to you. Many of you have no doubt understood this longer than I have. But for many people, friends and enemies are likely not who they thought they were before October 7.” This is an excellent time to venture outside of your political bubble for analyses.
David Mamet, arguably America’s greatest living playwright (and a former liberal Democrat), wrote: “How the Democrats betrayed the Jews: The sick thrill of antisemitism has a price” in which he said, “the world’s Leftist media calls for the chastisement of Israel and support for Palestine, while those who consider themselves mere ‘liberals’ moderate their cowardice by calling for a ‘ceasefire’ — which is to say, a pause while Hamas re-arms.”
From law professor William Jacobson: “Liberal Jews Thought Progressives Were An Ally, They Thought Wrong.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker wrote: "Liberals Need a Reckoning With Anti-Semitism." His subtitle was, “Ideas like ‘decolonization’ and ‘intersectionality’ turn out to justify mass murder.”
Marc Thiessen (American Enterprise Institute) wrote: “Antisemitism on the left needs to be called out, too, Mr. President.”
David Harsanyi says: “Liberal Jews Have No Reason To Be Surprised By Progressive Antisemitism” given “the ‘Jew-free’ zones students set up at Berkeley last year? … 11 student groups that promised to exclude any ‘Zionist’ (wink, wink) speakers on campus … Jewish students who complained they didn’t feel welcome on campus … [the] appearance of communist PLO-loving progressive heroine Angela Davis, who once argued that Jewish prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union deserved what they got.”
Arnold Kling writes: “What has shocked Jews much more than the atrocities of Hamas are the atrocities committed by Progressives. It turns out that Progressives support a Palestinian cause that seeks not peace and dignity for all but to drive Jews out of the Middle East completely. Progressives say that the ‘context’ justifies rape, murder and kidnapping of innocent people. Under the doctrine of intersectionality, Progressives manage to link support for Islamic theocrats to LGBTQ rights.”
Jewish college students are vulnerable to antisemitic professors
If you’re a Jewish student, antisemitic professors can determine what you can and cannot write about, what you can and cannot say in class, what grades will appear on your transcript, and whether you graduate.
At Columbia University, Professor Rashid Khalidi: “put his name to an open letter, signed by more than a hundred of his Columbia [University] colleagues, calling on the university to defend those students who publicly support Hamas.”
UC Davis professor Jemma Decristo tweeted: “Zionist journalists … have houses w addresses, kids in school,” adding “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.”
Art Institute of Chicago Professor Mika Tosca said on Instagram: “Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement…. May they all rot in hell.”
Columbia professor Joseph Massad called the Hamas massacre “awesome” and a “stunning victory.”
According to the CollegeFix, University of Arizona Professors Rebecca Lopez and Rebecca Zapien were “recorded telling a ‘Cultural Pluralism for Young Children’ class that Hamas is not comprised of terrorists, but is a ‘resistance’ group.”
From Business Insider: “Stanford suspends lecturer accused of making his Jewish students stand in a corner and calling Israelis ‘colonizers.’”
Jewish students are constrained & harassed by fellow students
The October Harvard CAPS/Harris poll showed that 48% of Americans ages 18-24 supported Hamas over Israel.
From City Journal: “a small cluster of Jewish students barricaded themselves in the library of Cooper Union, while a crowd outside banged on the doors chanting: ‘Free Palestine.’”
“Sammy Tweedy, son of Wilco frontman, became a ‘pariah’ [at Sarah Lawrence College] after speaking up for Israel.” Tweedy was dismayed when the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter honored Khaire Alkam — who shot and killed seven Israelis at a synagogue.
From the New York Post: “The New York University law student leader who lost a prestigious job offer after sending an incendiary pro-Hamas message—and now faces removal as the president of the school’s Student Bar Association—was caught on camera in New York City obscuring posters of hostages in the Israel-Hamas war.”
From Yonah Hain, Hillel Rabbi at Columbia University: “For years, Columbia’s Palestinian freedom movement has differentiated between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism … But by using the October 7 attacks as a rallying point for the movement, attendees of the campus rally can no longer argue that their activism differentiates between the two.”
An Anti-Defamation League/Hillel poll shows that: 73% of Jewish students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus.
National Students for Justice in Palestine called Hamas’s terror attack on Israel, “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance [against the] façade of an impenetrable settler colony.”
The Toronto Sun reports a post-October 7 banner at the University of British Columbia declaring, “Trans Liberation Can’t Happen without Palestinian Liberation.”
There’s antisemitism and indifference by college administrators
In Congressional testimony, the presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania showed shocking indifference to genocidal rhetoric on their campuses aimed at Jews. Whether such speech was allowable, they said, depended upon “context.” To its credit, the Biden White House slammed them: “It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country. Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans.”
The Spectator of Australia explored: “How Harvard Befriended Hamas” and described how antisemitism has a long history at the school.
The University of Wisconsin—Madison held a “Diversity Forum” on “Bridging the Divide” in mid-November. Despite significant ongoing distress by Jewish students, antisemitism was omitted from the discussion.
The University of Southern California barred economics professor John Strauss from teaching on campus for referring to Hamas terrorists as “murderers.” He was instructed to teach only by Zoom to “ensure a safe learning environment.”
A former college DEI administrator wrote: “I can safely say that toxic DEI ideology deliberately stokes hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people.”
From Campus Reform: “Jewish students at MIT have been met with calls for violence … When student Liyam Chitayat reached out to the anti-harassment office on campus about calls for violence by Palestinian activists, she was told to go to therapy.”
Antisemitic indoctrination begins at the K-12 level
The California Department of Education drafted an ethnic studies high school curriculum that critics slammed as antisemitic. Jewish legislators wrote that the curriculum, “effectively erases the American Jewish experience … omits any meaningful discussion of antisemitism” and only mentions Jews “in a denigrating and discriminatory manner” including “a classic antisemitic trope about Jewish control of the media.”
In the Daily Signal, a former K-12 educator describes the impact of critical race theory on students: “Four 11-year-olds were harassed and received death threats at Manhattan Beach Middle School in California because they are Jews. … BLM and LGBTQ+ groups consistently echo ethnic-cleansing statements and voice support for Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that raped and murdered about 1,200 Israeli citizens Oct. 7. … On Oct. 12, an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside a Columbia University library.” The article’s list of incidents is much longer.
At The Tablet, writer Andrew Fox describes the Kafkaesque wringers he and his son underwent after his son protested a pro-Hamas walkout by students at his Northern Virginia high school.
Influential left-of-center activists are loaded with antisemites
Leaders of the 2021 Women’s March allied itself with the virulently antisemitic Louis Farrakhan. When called to task on the association, the group’s leadership refused to back down, though they were eventually forced to relinquish their positions. The Atlantic magazine said the situation: “reveals anti-Semitism as a crucial blind spot of contemporary left-wing activism.”
Black Lives Matter (Chicago) issued a graphic celebrating Hamas’s paragliders, bearing the inscription “I stand with Palestine.” There is no association between Palestinians and paragliders other than the terror attacks of October 7. BLM—Chicago later deleted the post and issued a semi-apology.
A CompactMag report describes how: “Millennial Socialists Embrace Atrocities.”
Bari Weiss’s above-mentioned speech noted: “In Sydney, crowds gathered at the Sydney Opera House cheering ‘gas the Jews.’ … Then came BLM—Chicago using the paraglider—a symbol of mass death—as a symbol of freedom. … Then came Harvard’s task force to create safe spaces for pro-Hamas students. … An anti-Israel protester in Los Angeles killed a 69-year-old Jewish man for the apparent sin of waving an Israeli flag.”
The Anti-Defamation League reported that: “Fringe-Left Groups Express Support for Hamas’s Invasion and Brutal Attacks in Israel,” including chapters of the Democratic Socialists for America, whose ranks include members of Congress, and independent chapters of the much-vaunted Black Lives Matter organization.
Mark Winston Griffith, the executive director of the Black Movement Center in Crown Heights, told The Forward in 2021 that: “some black Americans see Judaism as ‘a form of almost hyper-whiteness.’”
Ian Kingsbury and Jay P. Greene write that: “A wave of open Jew-hatred by medical professionals, medical schools, and professional associations in the wake of the Hamas slaughter suggests that a field entrusted with healing is becoming a licensed purveyor of hatred.”
Left-of-center politicians include some outright antisemites, but far more who ignore, tolerate, or cower before their colleagues’ antisemitism
On October 25, the U.S. House passed H.Res. 771, (“Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists.”) Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said: “Someone who votes against this, I would think, doesn’t have a soul.” Nine Democrats (and one Republican) voted “no,” and six Democrats voted “present.”
The “Squad” is a highly influential round-robin assemblage of anti-Israel members of the House of Representatives whose rhetoric often wanders over into out-and-out antisemitism. From Seth Mandel at Commentary (with links at his piece): “No one in Congress works harder to drum up Jew-baiting at home and abroad than [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] … [Rep. Ilhan Omar] has specifically said that Jewish money buys members of Congress and that American Jews are disloyal citizens. … Ocasio-Cortez suggested U.S. testing of chemical weapons in Puerto Rico was “practice” for Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. … She also called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Israel Public Affairs Committee … an extremist organization that destabilizes US democracy.”
The U.S. House of Representatives recently censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib. From my own recent article: “On November 7, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 234-188 to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for making false accusations about Israel and effectively calling for the genocidal extinction of the Israeli people. 212 Republicans voted for the censure, 4 voted against it, and 1 voted ‘present.’ On the Democratic side, only 22 voted for the censure, 184 voted against it, and 3 voted ‘present.’”
Colorado Democratic state Rep. Iman Jodeh said: there is a “genocide happening” in Gaza at the hands of Israel.
Some leftist celebrities have exhibited antisemitism—or silence
Then, there is antisemitism and indifference to or cowering before antisemitism by celebrities. Quite a number have weighed in on the side of Israel—though not in the numbers or with the unity of parallel events.
Actress Susan Sarandon told an audience: “people who are ‘afraid of being Jewish at this time’ are ‘getting a taste of what it feels like to be Muslim in this country.” Her talent agency dumped her afterward.
The Spectator of London notes that celebrities railed against Boko Haram's kidnapping of Nigerian girls in 2016 but have mostly stayed silent on the kidnapping of Israeli girls in 2023.
Neighborhoods
Since October 7, Jews have been threatened, assaulted, and even murdered in their own neighborhoods:
The NYPD reported that: “Anti-Jewish hate crimes surged 214% in October in New York City.”
John Podhoretz wrote of being Jewish in New York during pro-Hamas protests: “Rather than protecting Jews, we’re being told to hide—again.”
In New York, ‘F*** JEWS:’ Antisemites Vandalize the Office of Bari Weiss’s Media Outlet. Vandals wrote a vulgar antisemitic message outside the office of Bari Weiss’s publication the Free Press last week, the latest example in a string of antisemitic incidents that have taken place in American cities and on college campuses since the brutal Hamas attack on Israeli civilians earlier this month.
In Chicago, vandals scrawled “NAZIS” on former Mayor and now U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel’s home.
From Newsweek: “the Philly Palestine Coalition … called for a boycott of ‘Zionist’-owned businesses in the city” and surrounded a Goldie’s falafel restaurant, chanting “Goldie, Goldie you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.”
In Los Angeles, 69-year-old Paul Kessler was killed in the street by a pro-Palestinian protestor for the offense of holding an American flag. A computer science professor has been charged in the death.
On right-wing antisemitism
As noted at the beginning of the piece, my left-of-center friends worry deeply about right-wing antisemitism and, again, I’ve never denied the problem nor minimized its dangers. I have merely argued that at this particular juncture in history, the problem is far outweighted by the dangers and power of left-wing antisemitism. Here, I’ll touch briefly on what I perceive to be the five groups of concerns over right-wing antisemites cited by my left-leaning friends:
[1] CHARLOTTESVILLE
Knowing that I was writing today’s piece, a Bastiat’s Window reader asked me to address the following groups as particularly worrying exemplars of right-wing antisemitism: Unite the Right, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Christian Nationalists, Goyim Defense League, David Duke, and hundreds fellow travelers listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). And so I shall.
Let me say first that I wholly reject the SPLC as a credible source of information on extremist groups. Starting from noble anti-KKK impulses during the Civil Rights Era, the group degenerated over the years into conspiracy-mongering, libel-spreading, and political smearing.
As for the other groups, let’s begin with 2017’s white supremacist/antisemitic Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Virginia. (I attended the University of Virginia there as an undergraduate and later taught for a decade). The march was loaded with hateful crackpots—notably one who killed a counterprotestor and injured dozens with his car. (He will likely rot for the rest of his life in prison.) President Biden frequently cites Charlottesville as a pivotal historic moment and has said that it was a motivation behind his quest for the presidency in 2020.
But here’s the thing: “Unite the Right” didn’t unite anything. The marchers were a stretch-limo clown car of around 250 . A year later, Unite the Right 2 in Washington, DC attracted 20-30 marchers. This is no consolation to the loved ones of Heather Heyer, killed in Charlottesville, but it doesn’t constitue a major threat to American civic life.
Importantly, Unite the Right, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Christian Nationalists, Goyim Defense League, David Duke differ from today’s left-wing antisemites in that:
They are few in number;
They are political nonentities (David Duke was a Louisiana legislator from 1989 to 1992);
They have little influence over election results;
Their leaders are mostly obscure nobodies;
Their public profiles tend to be short-lived;
They do not run universities;
They do not hold professorships where they can determine the futures of Jewish students;
They do not live and study on the same campuses as Jewish students;
When they show up on campuses, they can be ejected;
They do not design K-12 curriculum;
They do not edit academic journals;
They do not receive vast amounts of government largesse to support their efforts;
They are not important sources of news and information for people outside of their own tiny circles;
They are not major cultural figures or pop icons;
They do not run human resources programs for schools, corporations, government agencies, or religious institutions.
[2] SYNAGOGUE SHOOTERS
In 2018, a shooter invaded the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and wounding 6, and he appears to have been influenced by alt-right publications produced by groups like those described in the previous section. A string of such figures have similarly wreaked havoc on Jews over the years. Their actions instill fear in Jews nationwide. However, their numbers are microscopic, even when compared to the groups in the preceding section. They are generally disconnected loners—not acting as part of any mass movements. While antisemitism may be their pretext, they differ little from their fellow lunatics who shoot up schools, malls, offices, and concerts. Despite the fear they cause, the likelihood that any particular Jewish person will encounter one of these loons is vanishingly small.
[3] SPACE LASERS
A few years before entering Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) posted something on social media that seemed (incoherently) to suggest that the Rothschild family financed space lasers that somehow might have caused California wildfires—or something like that. Loony, indeed, but hardly a harbinger of widespread conservative antisemitism. It would be difficult to name a less influential, impactful member of the House Republican Caucus. Dig a bit, and one can find other cases of weirdness toward Jews among other fringe right-of-center officials. Disturbing, no doubt, but does it compare with the post-October 7 waves of left-wing antisemitism? You decide.
[4] RED HEIFER
Many years ago, my family and I stayed in a bed-and-breakfast owned by an elderly couple. When they learned that we were Jewish, they talked incessantly for the rest of our sojourn about how honored they were to have as guests three people who would, whether we knew it or not, participate soon in ushering in a new Messianic Era. A red heifer, they informed us, had been discovered in Israel and in Jerusalem, Jewish priests were trying on priestly robes in preparation for the new era. Our stay at the B&B was, indeed, weird.
A large percentage of American Christians—Evangelicals in particular—regularly issue prayers for the well-being of Jews and also strongly support the State of Israel. Some of my leftward friends insist that the primary reason for this is that, like our off-centered B&B hosts, Jews are nothing more than pawns in some grand theological agenda. (In my experience, those who harbor this suspicion tend to be those who have very little interaction with or real knowledge of actual Christians.)
No doubt, for some, Messianic theology does matter in how they view Jews. I don’t think this is the primary concern for most Christians. But even where it is, I would ask my leftward friends a question: Which worries you more: (a) People who are praying for your health and safety for reasons you don’t like; or (b) People marching in the streets in support of Hamas, whose stated goal has always been to murder every single Jew on the face of the earth? You decide.
[5] DONALD TRUMP!
For many of my friends, the Olympic Gold Medal for right-wing antisemitism goes to Donald Trump for his “very fine people on both sides” comment after the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville. I think it’s clear from context that he was referring to people preferring to leave Robert E. Lee’s statue standing, rather than to the marchers specifically. He also remarked, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”
I can note a similar recent gaffe by President Biden. In acknowledging that a Gaza hospital was struck not by an Israeli bomb, but rather by a Hamas missile, the president said that Palestinian terrorists have “gotta learn how to shoot straight.” I’m quite confident he does not wish for terrorists to acquire greater marksmanship. He was just using his characteristic “hey-man” breeziness.
I’m no defender of either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, but so far as I can tell, both are sincere supporters of Israel and friendly toward Jews. Both men, unfortunately exhibit a rhetorical sloppiness and ineptitude likely unprecedented in American political history.
LAGNIAPPE
Eloquence from the Left
German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, a member of the Green Party, recently delivered one of the most calm, but powerful condemnations of the tide of antisemitism and anti-Israel mania sweeping Europe and the world. He warned other countries not to venture down the dark road his own country took and the penance that Germans must exhibit to counteract that poisonous legacy. This particular video was posted by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council—in a country where post-October 7 throngs stood before the Sydney Opera House chanting, “Gas the Jews.”
I posted this comment a day or so ago in the WSJ in response to "The True Face of the Anti-Israel Movement:"
Part of the problem is that so much focus of Antisemitism has been on the comparatively small number of White Supremacists, while ignoring the comparatively gargantuan number of Islamist and Leftist Antisemites. Not only in numbers but also money pouring in. White Supremacist groups rich??? Billions going to Islamists and hundreds of millions going to the Left.
Islamist for religious reasons. Leftists for twisted Marxist oppressor/oppressed/colonialist reasons to gain power.
The ADL since Obama's Jonathon Greenblatt took over has been complicit in this misdirection.
Your article is exceptionally complete and well sourced. Thank you. Will be sharing.
> The Anti-Defamation League reported that: “Fringe-Left Groups Express Support for Hamas’s Invasion and Brutal Attacks in Israel,”
The more this happens, the less appropriate the adjective "fringe" looks in that sentence.
> In 2018, a shooter invaded the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and wounding 6, and he appears to have been influenced by alt-right publications produced by groups like those described in the previous section.
Can we please not include stuff like this on the Right side of the ledger? There's a reason they called themselves "alt-right," and it's because the weren't the Right and they knew full well the Right wouldn't have them, so they tried to set up an alternative version thereof.
The term "alt-right" was coined by white supremacist Richard Spencer to describe the way he and a group of like-minded individuals felt they had found a new home in conservative politics now that the media assured them that then-Presidential nominee Donald Trump was "one of us." A few years later, once Trump had shown himself to be not much of a racist at all, an embarrassed Spencer claimed, in a transparent attempt to save face and not admit he'd been deceived by media slanders of Trump, that Trump had "betrayed" white supremacist principles, and that his followers shouldn't vote for his reelection, endorsing Joe Biden instead. Amusingly enough, that was pretty much the precise moment when the mainstream media stopped using the term "alt-right," now that it was no longer politically useful to them.