Well-Meaning but Misguided Jewish Support for Noble-Sounding Ideas Has Empowered Antisemitism

The sad reality that well-meaning leftist Jews must face is that Jewish support for the Black Lives Matter movement has empowered antisemitism. It must be emphasized that this in no way means that Jews should not support efforts to fight racism. Jews have been on the forefront of fighting racism for a long time, and that should continue to be the case. The sentiment that "Black lives matter" and the organization called "Black Lives Matter" are two entirely different things.

As Jonathan Tobin notes in the article cited above:

Left-wing ideologues seek to gaslight the country about the existence of critical race theory indoctrination in the schools rather than defend such practices. Even liberal politicians now try to distance themselves from insane notions like defunding the police that is embraced by BLM and the far-left.

But what hasn't happened is an acknowledgment by mainstream Jewish organizations that their fear of being perceived as being out of touch with liberal fashion on racial issues in the summer of 2020 wasn't just wrongheaded. It also served to provide cover for and to undermine opposition to ideas that enabled antisemitism, and helped demonize Israel and its supporters.

This wasn't just a serious lapse in judgment on the part of those who claim to speak for American Jews. They have largely failed to directly address the way that the BLM movement has legitimized the ideas most closely associated with it, such as critical race theory, intersectionality and white privilege.

Since these concepts label Jews and Israel as privileged and treat those who call for the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet--a racist project if ever there was one--as oppressed victims deserving of support, they essentially grant a permission slip for antisemitism.

That helps explain the way the most vicious anti-Israel invective has gone mainstream in ways that might have been considered unimaginable prior to 2020.

Well-meaning but misguided Jewish support for so-called "progressive" ideas has helped fuel the rise of antisemitic members of Congress who are working hard to destroy Israel. Benjamin Kerstein describes the peril facing Israel and the Jewish people:

It is clear that antisemitism in the United States has become a social movement that is swiftly metastasizing into mainstream institutional politics.

It has captured large sections of the Democratic Party, especially its progressive wing, and essentially taken over America's institutions of higher learning. It is ubiquitous in the activism that drives left-wing politics in the U.S. It has taken to the streets in the form of the May 2021 pogrom committed by Muslim-Americans. And it has now entered Congress, the citadel of American democracy itself.

The entrance of systemic antisemitism into mainstream national politics marked a milestone this week when Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced a House resolution demanding official recognition of the Nakba--a term used to lament the Arabs' failure to commit genocide against the Jewish population of then-Palestine in 1947-48.

The resolution is too long for a full accounting here, but suffice it to say that it is an entirely predictable but nonetheless remarkable document. It is predictable in that it parrots almost word-for-word the rhetoric of hardline Palestinian nationalism--it is closer to Hamas than the Palestinian Authority--but also remarkable in its honesty.

In particular, it openly advocates the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state via the Palestinian "right of return." It asserts that international law "recognizes that descendants of refugees retain their rights as refugees"; that "a just and lasting resolution requires respect for and the implementation of Palestine refugee rights"; and demands that the United States "support the implementation of Palestinian refugees' rights."

What this means, beyond the polite euphemisms and sophistic use of the vocabulary of progressivism, is quite simple: Millions of refugees must be returned to the territory of the State of Israel, rendering its Jewish population a demographic minority and swiftly turning it into a Palestinian supremacist state.

It means, in other words, the realization of the Palestinian national movement's most treasured ambition: to rid the fatherland of the Jews, or at least reduce them to the second-class status to which Islam has always relegated them.

Kerstein offers a stern warning:

American Jews may be in sympathy with the ideology of "The Squad," but they must understand that these people hate you. And however progressive, compassionate, empathetic and idealistic they may seem, when the chips are down, they will eat you alive.

So, remember their names: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Betty McCollum, Marie Newman, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. They are not finished. They will be back. And you must be ready for them.

Racism disgusts and sickens me. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of my heroes. If I had been alive in the 1960s I would have publicly supported him, just like I publicly write about causes and issues now that may not be popular with everyone. It pains me to watch how the Civil Rights Movement has been corrupted by malevolent individuals who are more focused on accumulating power for themselves and spewing hatred then they are on promoting social justice. The Jewish people are an oppressed group, and the fate of the Jewish people is inextricably intertwined with the fate of other oppressed groups. The self-proclaimed "progressives" must be voted out of office, and replaced with people who are focused on making this a better country for all of us, as opposed to ostracizing and demonizing Jews.