Home » The growing acceptance of anti-Semitism by the Democratic Party

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The growing acceptance of anti-Semitism by the Democratic Party — 46 Comments

  1. The Dems are stuck with anti-semitism for the foreseeable future because the Black Congressional Caucus is very anti-semitic as evidenced by their total acceptance of Louis Farrakhan and the Black Muslims. Even Obama was on board, though the press hid his approval.

  2. I may be off-base here, but I consider it part of the growing Eurification of US politics. Just as it’s now widely accepted that Nazis were on the right (which they are, in Euro politics, which places nationalism on the right, but not on the traditional US political spectrum which places statist tyrannies on the left), I’ve watched the Jew-hate which is endemic in Europe gradually take root here. I’m not Jewish nor did I grow up in an area with many Jewish people, but it’s not my experience that Jew-hate is a natural feature of America.

    Something I don’t get, though, is that why would leftists, lacking a dog in the Abrahamic faith fight, hate Jews? Is it really just the usual default support of anything that is a third-world, non-Euro culture against anything that smacks of western civilization? Is it just that built in to European culture to hate Jews? What other reason do leftists have to hate Jews?

  3. KyndllG:

    I don’t think you’re off-base in the least.

    In fact, my original title for the post (in draft form) was “The Europeanization of Democratic anti-Semitism.” But I changed the title because I decided it was about more than that.

  4. Yep, it’s both.

    More broadly, the question has been: “Shall the Democratic Party be a party of liberalism, or of leftism?”

    For, Liberalism isn’t particularly antisemitic; whereas Leftism is.

    The Democratic Party used to try to keep a balance-of-forces; but at present, they’ve doubled-down on Leftism. In fact, they’re gradually excommunicating their former crop of Liberals. I doubt folk like Sam Nunn or Tip O’Neill could ever get elected as Democrats today. Even JFK probably couldn’t run as a Democrat any longer (too friendly to tax-cuts and too much of a Cold Warrior). Pro-tip: When your party starts deriding Alan Dershowitz for being too friendly with the right, your party has given up any right to the term “liberal.”

    That leaves the Democratic Party as the Leftist party. But what is Leftism?

    So far as I can see, the Leftist Worldview consists in the belief that those who’re happy, well-adjusted, and non-starving are, always and everywhere, guilty of achieving their successes by mercilessly exploiting anyone nearby who is unhappy, deranged, or broke…and that the only solution to this problem is to continually give unlimited armed regulatory power to Leftists so that nobody can do anything, in any sphere of life, without first bribing a Leftist for permission.

    Israeli Jews, like American Jews, are most often happy, well-adjusted, and not starving. (Woody Allen is at least not starving, though he sometimes looks like he is.)

    Consequently, the Left blames Israeli Jews for the poverty and unhappiness of the closest adjacent Arabs in much the same way they blame American Jews (in combination with other members of the American middle- or upper-classes) for the poverty and unhappiness of the closest adjacent persons of Latino or African ancestry.

    Leftists are unable to include poor/unhappy persons of Caucasian ancestry because of their ingrained, illiberal habit of classifying persons by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. Likewise, middle- and upper-class persons of Latino or African ancestry — no matter how successful — are automatically classified as poor and unhappy, because in Leftist epistemology, skin-color outweighs personal testimonials and tax-returns.

    Anyway, if the Democrats lose the next big election, they may reconsider Leftism and move back towards Liberalism.

    But if they win? Ye gods.

  5. KyndllG:

    Many reasons for the left to hate Jews.

    The first is: what do they lose? Not so much. A lot of Jewish voters are on the left no matter what, and don’t really identify as Jews. And Jews have very small numbers and are concentrated in places where the left is strong even without them. Losing some Jewish donors could be a problem, but I think the left thinks the gains in general will be bigger than the losses.

    They don’t need an ideogical reason to hate Jews, just a tactical practical one: to appeal to blocs that hate Jews. Certain ethnic blocs which are fairly numerous have become more anti-Semitic: Hispanics, blacks, and people of Arab origin.

    See this:

    The 2005 survey found “35 percent of foreign-born Hispanics” and 36 percent of African-Americans hold strong antisemitic beliefs, four times more than the 9 percent for whites”. The 2005 Anti-Defamation League survey includes data on Hispanic attitudes, with 29% being most antisemitic (vs. 9% for whites and 36% for blacks); being born in the United States helped alleviate this attitude: 35% of foreign-born Hispanics, but only 19% of those born in the US.

    The left has somewhat given up on white voters and cast their lot with ethnic ones—plus white “progressives” and younger voters who are in college or recently emerged from it. They have recently been fed the current college anti-Israel anti-Jewish line, and the young are a very strong bloc for the left. It is virtue-signaling—the Palestinians are the victims and the Jews the oppressors.

    That last bit—Jews as privileged oppressors—fits into the left’s tactics as well. And the whole thing is also part of a general Eurocentric shift.

  6. “..why would…?

    Short answer:
    Messianism. The “perfect” society.

    (And “the Jews”—which term one can, and certainly does, define in whichever convenient way one wishes—have been “in the way” of that particularly gig over and over again, in a whole variety of ways…).

    The latest version of “messianism” is of course, “anti-colonialism”, “anti-nationalism”, “anti-oppression”, “anti-capitalism”, “anti-fascism”, and “anti-racism”—but only in their Western and generally Caucasian manifestation, which is how they are currently defined—with “anti-Zionism” being the culmination of all the above evils (with anti-Semitism lagging not far behind).

    It is, of course, the fault of the Jews since they could easily have avoided all this by allowing themselves to be “thrown into the sea” in 1948, or in 1967, or in 1973, or any time after that. The Jews, it seems, “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

    But it is not too late. (It is never “too late”.)

    As the Iranians, so generously funded by the previous Democratic administration—along with the Iranian allies and proxies, most notable of which are Hizb’ullah and Hamas (though the Palestinian Authority, walking a fine line, insists that it, not Hamas, not Iran, should be the one to bring about Israel’s destruction—it’s just a “pride” thang, really; totally understandable)—are doing their best to ensure that the next “opportunity” will be the last.

    (But if it isn’t, there will always be a next time. Always.)

  7. Neo,

    You’re a good person.

    I remember walking home from school in early June ’67 during the waning days of the ‘66/’67 school year, almost in a state of euphoria. No, it wasn’t weed. Before leaving school, I’d heard the big news on tv in my homeroom. Israel in lightening quick fashion had done the impossible– against overwhelming odds she’d not only somehow survived, but soundly defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in what was later to be known as the 6 days war. I knew that my father, when he got home from work, would be as moved by events as I was. And he was. When we saw each other we didn’t even have to speak. We knew what the other was thinking. Goodness. It was exhilarating, a bigger deal than the Cardinals winning the World Series. Of course, some brave men had made the ultimate sacrifice. So there was sadness, too.

    Perhaps about now would be a good time for Bob Dylan to get himself a guest spot on a hip late night tv talk show and sing Neighborhood Bully, then sit down with the host and do a little actual “speaking truth to power” about this rising tide of fashionable (i.e., Leftist) anti-Semitism. Why do I know this couldn’t happen?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UImf8Uo2GHU

  8. I think another key part of this shift can be credited to Cold War Soviet involvement in the Middle East. By the late 50s they had already allied with the pan Arab movement, and shaped many of the new Arab states as socialist republics. Also, despite the leftist leanings of many early pioneers of Israel, there was no love for Jews in the USSR. I believe the Soviets were largely responsible for creating the identity of the Palestinian people as a distinct subset of Arabs They knew that this underdog identity (as victims of the colonial West) would resonate with the American and European left.

  9. What I can’t figure out is how my relatives who work in academia, but also strongly identify as Jews in a religious sense, reconcile their hatred for Israel with their religious beliefs. They seem to block out large chunks of history, as if the dispute only began in 1967.

  10. It’s what I call the “Perversity Quotient” and all too often affects people who are really “smart”, really “intelligent”, really “caring”, really “helpful” and really “empathetic”.

    Except when that PQ kicks in.

    (It all makes a tremendous amount of sense in a perverse sort of way….)

  11. “A great many Jewish voters on the left don’t see the anti-Semitic aspects of the current over-the-top criticism of Israel, and are not aware of what’s a lie and what is not. ”

    That would make those blind souls the Sonderkommandos of the Democrat Party… and happy to be so. Until, of course, it is there turn.

  12. Victor Davis Hanson takes a searingly perceptive, acutely accurate and wryly witty (alas) look at the latest salamander-like trend among the pathetic batch of Democratic hopefuls—outrageous, hysterical hypocrites all:
    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/progressive-democratic-candidates-renounce-former-centrist-views/
    (H/T: Powerline Blog)

    Key graf (one of many):
    “To win the nomination, almost all the leading candidates on the Democratic debate stage now believe that they must renounce almost everything they once stood for — at least for a while.”

    What this means for anyone—especially any Jew—who supports Israel (or at least supports Israel’s right to exist) should be crystal clear.

    The huge and almost unsolvable problem is that Democratic/MSM/Left/Liberal demonization of Trump and the center-right (and general center, for that matter) is that so many basically decent people are standing on the tracks, staring transfixed at this runaway, loco locomotive with eyes wide shut.

  13. Oops. Should be:
    “The huge and almost unsolvable problem is that Democratic/MSM/Left/Liberal demonization of Trump and the center-right (and general center, for that matter) has been so extraordinarily, so perniciously effective, that myriads of basically decent people are standing on the tracks, staring transfixed at this runaway, Democrat locomotive with eyes wide shut as it hurtles towards them—with them cheering it on!.”

  14. I have found it difficult to understand why the average Black citizen that is not a Black Muslim is anti-Semitic. The Jews pushed and some died to bring Civil Rights for the Blacks.
    As for the Jews that are Democrats, they should remember the “First they came for the Jews and I did nothing. Then came for the Catholics and I did nothing. Then they came for me.”

  15. vanderleun:

    That is an obscene analogy that shows ignorance about who and what the Sonderkommandos were and why. The same is true for all the “kapo” comparisons, which I often see around the internet.

    I dealt with the “kapo” charge here. The same is true, but even more so, for what you wrote about Jews today and Sonderkommandos.

    Also, perhaps you don’t know about the revolt of the Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz. Horror beyond imagining and pressures beyond enduring.

  16. Gothamite:

    If they are reform Jews, to be anything other than a liberal Democrat would be unacceptable. If they are conservative or Orthodox, their present position as Democrats would be more surprising, although rationalization coupled with historical ignorance and propaganda would explain it.

    Fifty years ago reform Jews and Democrats were staunchly pro-Israel, and there was no conflict between that and their politics. Now there is.

  17. I have found it difficult to understand why the average Black citizen that is not a Black Muslim is anti-Semitic. The Jews pushed and some died to bring Civil Rights for the Blacks.

    Suggest it’s the percolation of opinion leader attitudes to the general population. (See Glenn Loury’s hypothesis that the social dynamics of law school explain black-Jewish antagonism among professionals and politicians). Note also, blacks vote Democratic by 10-1 margins, in spite of the fact that Republicans aren’t implicated in maintaining the ancien regime in the South and they fully participated in dismantling it. There’s the actual history and the image of that history people maintain. The deals the opinion-leader element have made with white Democrats and hispanic Democrats re-inforce these tendencies.

  18. Neo: that’s the paradox. I am less observant than my sister, who considers herself a conservative Jew, but is hyper leftist in her political beliefs. I have followed the political change path and walked away from that world. And the biggest factor in my change was having open dialogue with two orthodox Jews at work.

  19. The drift back into Jew-hating in Europe, accelerated by their new Islamic residents, is discouraging. I think of Jew-hating as a cancer, a sign of sick societies. It is notable, and a good thing, that Europeans who migrated to what became the US did not bring their Jew-hating with them to nearly the same extent as that exhibited by their still-European cousins.

    The propaganda campaign by the “Palestinians” has to rank as one of the most successful in modern times. Successful, and horrifying.

  20. “Europeanization of American politics”

    European anti-Semitism was originally justified on Christian religious grounds..the fact that Jesus was himself a Jew had little effect on this. Then, as nationalism became strong, anti-Semitism was justified on the grounds that Jews weren’t *really* a part of the nation…the fact that 12,000 Jews died fighting for Germany in WWI (and many more served, including Anne Frank’s father) did not deter those opinions. (See also the Dreyfus affair in France)

    And with the European decline in both religiosity and nationalism, there is now a new set of justifications, centered around hostility toward Israel and its supports.

    It’s hard not to conclude that anti-Semitism is in fact a core European value.

  21. I have found it difficult to understand why the average Black citizen that is not a Black Muslim is anti-Semitic. The Jews pushed and some died to bring Civil Rights for the Blacks.

    LYNN HARGROVE: The Jews are sort of ultra-white — rich, smart, and successful — but still a minority, so it’s safer to hate them.

    Plus all the crazy Black Muslim nonsense.

  22. Such a strange world, politics. Remember when J Street invited James Baker III to speak in 2015? From The Times of Israel — “Why J Street loves Jim Baker: Bush’s secretary of state got the room for an hour largely because he and the then-president stood up to Israel, were proud of it”

  23. Sonderkommandos: Perhaps I misexpressed myself … over-expressed myself. I meant that this group of collaborators would perform not under threat and torture as in the camps but willingly and even happily by Jewish Democrats without realizing that they are complicit in their own destruction. Performed willingly as it were. Perhaps the evil enormity of the original sonderkommandos makes my comparison to today’s betrayers of Israel in seem out of proportion. And perhaps it is. For now. But it would seem to me that helping (voluntarily) to establish the foundation for a leftist government here that is only the beginning of an evolution towards an toltalitarian state here that, like many social experiments in the last century at least, does not strike me as being particularly good for the Jewish people in America. Perhaps “stooges” or “usefull idiots” may have been a more diplomatic choice of words. Perhaps there may well be an evolution towards a kinder gentler communism than that seen in the last century and we will all emerge in to the upland meadows of a fair and wonderful land in which the Jewish Americans will never have to worry that their party and their government may fall into the hands of the increasingly rabid anti-semites of the Democratic Socialists and that we will all shine on and dance in the heady uplands of Socialism Done Right. I would like that but that’s not where this train pulled by the Democrats is going right now. And it is picking up speed.

  24. More on why there is a fair amount of anti-Semitism among black Americans—

    During the early civil rights movement, Jews were very active in it. During the 60s, when black people in the movement began very interested in separating out from the whites in the movement and taking ownership and charge of it, it was their Jewish fellow-activists they felt the need to separate from. It was pretty heated, if I remember correctly.

    Another reason was that quite a few Jews owned stores or were landlords in black neighborhoods, and that bred some resentment of the usual landlord/tenant variety. In addition, you had demagogues such as Al Sharpton purposely fanning the flames of anti-Semitism and rioting for their own self-aggrandizing purposes.

    Note that today’s Democratic Party embraces Sharpton.

  25. My direct experience with Jewish fellow activists and leftists of the 60s was, during my time at Berkeley in the late 60s early 70s was extensive. This included a live-in affair with a woman who was on the steering committee of the VDC and a red-diaper baby of the first water out of Teaneck NJ. It also included hanging with such folks as Barbara and Marvin Garson of FSM (plus MacBird plus running on the Socialist Presidental ticket). It also included time spent with Stew Albert (YSA and Yippies) and Jerry Rubin and all the host of leftist/Jewish political folks at the time. I even spent time hanging out with the terminally unattractive in all senses of the word princess of the American Communists Bettina Aptheker.

    In this regard I was pretty deep into the folks running the leftist troops at the university at that time.

    It was all fun and games with these folks right up to the time that Israel began to win wars and assert its dominance and break away from its redder roots.

    At that time there was a distinct and rather sudden shift amongst almost all the Lerftist/Jewish politicos at that university. They all began to, almost in unison, almost as if they had gotten “the word” to start to hate on Israel. A few of the Leftist Jewish leaders (Louis Rappaport chief among them) refused to go along with the Party line and demonize Israel while promoting the Palestinians. Still not going along with the Party Line meant, as I found out, that you were pretty much kicked out of the club.

    This tumor grew and grew among the American left and in time the American left, in the academy and elsewhere, has pretty much now completed its subversion of the Democrats (not that they are complaining too loudly about it.).

    Now it has metastisized and is growing again in American politics. The irony is that much of what you see as the raw material of anti-semitism now began its life as anti-Zionist propaganda created and promoted by many member of the Left Jewish politicos of that era as they followed the requirements of their evil ideology over what would be good for their own people. In a very real sense they made it okay for others, blacks and whites and Asians in America, to hate Jews.

    And even now they have no problem with it. Why? I think its because they are still convinced that, like the Russian Jewish Revolutionaries, when “the Revolution” happens they’ll be part of the Party, the Central Committee, or the nomenklatura. It never seems to occur to them they could just be setting themselves up for the inevitable corrections of any sort of American Stalin that will happen along after “the Revolution.” It never seems to occur to them today that when they sow the wind they shall reap the whirlwind.

    There is the apocryphal tale of the Jewish grandmother who interprets every bit of news from the world by weighing them against whether or not this or that would be “good for the Jews.” It would seem that many of the best and the brightest among Jewish Democrats have forgotten that the more totalitarian a party or a government becomes it is not ever “good for the Jews”. They seem to have bought into the notion that what happened to the Jews in other cultures and other times can “never happen here.”

    It can, and if it goes on unchecked, and the left gains control, it will. Depend upon it. When it comes to pogroms and holocausts, history does repeat.

  26. The lefties we see now in the Dem party are their future. The Dems in control today are afraid to say anything that will offend any constituent, so they have no choice but to watch this super-aggressive cadre grow and gain more power. They are helpless, spineless and supine. In time, the left will devour what is left of the Dem party, pols we used to refer to as “liberals.”

  27. Even I can’t believe that Trump is so incompetent that, in the middle of playing the antisemitism card, he manages to call Jews disloyal.

    What a conservative. He’s standing athwart history, yelling derp.

  28. Even I can’t believe that Trump is so incompetent that, in the middle of playing the antisemitism card, he manages to call Jews disloyal.

    Even I cannot imagine you’re sufficiently incompetent to read a New York Times headline and not the actual remark of the President.

    “Five years ago, the concept of even talking about cutting off aid to Israel because of two people who hate Israel and hate Jewish people – I can’t believe we are having this conversation. Where has the Democratic party gone? Where have they gone where they are defending these two people over the state of Israel?

    “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — I think it shows either total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”

    For purposes of Correct-the-Record trolling, you pretend the Sulzberberger / Bezos / Zucker have some baseline of integrity.

  29. Art Deco: Once again, Trump’s seemingly off-the-cuff and loose use of verbiage is used to smear him. But I’m starting to believe that he intentionally uses phrasing that is subject to manipulation as a way of further exposing his (and our) enemies. By provoking the left to try to tar him as an antisemite for using the term “disloyalty”, he is focusing attention on the issue, which is that there are Jews who abet their own enemies in order to stay within the progressive fold. I suppose he could have used the term “self-hating” instead of “disloyal”, but that would have been a more loaded way to put it.

  30. Ah, so now I see the headline which prompted Manju’s comment. Trump and the MSM are vying, via tweets and headlines, to shape political discourse.

    Personally, I go with the “uninformed” part of Trump’s comment about Jews voting for Democrats. The left is already starting to eat its own. Jews who look with open eyes at the history of their tribe would have to see, it seems to me, that the left will be coming for them soon. With Israel, and with Hasidim in the New York area, it’s already happening. Reform and secular American Jews are foolish to think it won’t happen to them.

  31. “…shape political discourse…”

    More like “bludgeon”…. (but hey, that’s the MSM’s job!…and Trump—that tyro, that interloper, that rogue—has no right to interfere with the Narrative (TM)….)

  32. Right, Barry Meislin. How dare Trump use Twitter to contradict the MSM’s narrative! The nerve of that guy!

  33. Neo, I think you are right. If I recall correctly, at the time of 1967 war there was little question (in my circles or local media, at least) that Israel was the Good Guys. Come 1973, however, and it had gotten more… nuanced. I think there is a deep conviction among the left that those at the top are evil (or else how would they be rich and powerful?). Therefore the Israelis, as a successful society, must be Bad, compared to the poor Palestinians, who must be Good.

  34. Frankly, I find it very problematic that any politician [on the left or the right, Republican or Democrat] would tell Jewish people in America that they should be loyal to Israel or loyal to a particular political party. If a politician wants the court Jewish voters it’s best not to call all those who don’t vote one way or another as ‘disloyal’ or ‘voting against their interests’. It’s presumptuous, it’s ugly, it definitely boarders on anti-Semitism and it will not get any politician more votes. Jewish people are not pawns in some political game.

    From the Began-Sedat site.
    “Statistics show that the main anti-Semitic hate motif worldwide is that diaspora Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the country in which they live.” If we expect people to not use this line of thinking then we have to call it out when someone says Jews should be loyal as well. And, yes, for the record I am critical of Ilhan Omar when she said something similar. The House rightly passed a resolution condemning her remarks.

  35. “The House rightly passed a resolution condemning her remarks.”

    Her remarks? Her who? She who could not be named in the lamed-assed resolution now touted? That’s pathetic weak trash you’re bringing there, montage. Pathetic.

  36. Montage:

    Hmmm, so saying Jews who vote for people who want to destroy Israel shows disloyalty to Israel is somehow anti-Semitic and similar to the old charge of dual loyalty?

    That’s some twisted “logic” you’ve got there.

    I actually don’t like Trump’s remarks in this instance. But it is a descriptive statement of fact: Jews that vote for people who want to destroy Israel (the party of Omar and Tlaib) are not loyal to Israel.

    And nice try. Actually, the House refused to condemn either woman. Democrats have—as I write in this post—become more and more anti-Israel with every passing year.

  37. Hmmm, so saying Jews who vote for people who want to destroy Israel shows disloyalty to Israel is somehow anti-Semitic and similar to the old charge of dual loyalty?

    Why should American Jews be loyal to Israel the way you define loyalty? You’re claiming the left and in turn the Democrats want to destroy Israel. That is an opinion but it is not shared by many Jewish Americans. And based on the bipartisan financial support we give to Israel each year it doesn’t seem the case among most Democrats.
    As polling has shown 7 in 10 American Jews vote for and support Democrats. [Or did in the presidential and midterm elections] I don’t think Jewish voters make political choices lightly or in an uneducated manner. I also know they themselves are not anti-Semitic.

    I know you and I disagree about the use of Trump’s words but ‘disloyal’ is really the wrong word to use in this case. Would it not have been better for Trump to say I don’t understand why any Jews would vote for Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar? But lumping all Democrats together and therefore all Jewish voters into one big political position about a perception of how Democrats feel about Israel is a generalization. It’s like claiming that black people shouldn’t vote for Republicans because Republicans are racists. Jewish Americans – like black Americans – should not be expected to vote for any particular party. They have many political reasons why they vote. Saying they should only vote based on one political position is problematic because it assumes their identity is only one thing that you happen to find important. [Sorry, I am not trying to argue or accuse you on a personal level. I hope you understand that.]

    Regarding the House resolution it was pretty clear who the resolution referred to. Again, I completely, agree with the criticism or Omar even if the resolution fell short of specifically naming her.

  38. Gerard vanderleun — your second analysis is much better. Jews on the Left have been “useful idiots” and stooges for more than a century now. They just don’t get the idea that the Left is not their friend, that it will turn on them, sooner or later. As the chief Rabbi of Moscow, Rabbi Jacob Maze, once said to Trotsky (born Lev Bronstein), after being told that he, Trotsky, would not help the Jews of Russia because he was a Communist and did not consider himself a Jew: “Trotsky makes the revolutions, and the Bronsteins pay the bills.”

  39. Not too long ago, tne NYT remarked that none of the attacks on Jews in the city, of which there has been an alarming number, could be connected to white anti-semitism and hate.
    Which is to say, they didn’t actually happen, in terms of making a lot of noise. Which is to say, further, that a good many more can happen before it becomes a crisis which must be addressed by Authority.

    I keep saying it; it will be funny/sad when Jews find their safe spaces are Baptist churches and NASCAR events.

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