American Jews Need to Stop Being Stupid About Politics
By Julia Hahn
And start taking policy seriously
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, the assault on American Jewish liberal reality has come from all sides: from universities, favored media outlets, Hollywood, and the political leaders for whom many American Jews had voted and donated large sums of money. The day following the attack, the Biden White House held a barbecue for staff—apparently, the events of the day prior didn’t call for a postponement of festivities. That weekend, the administration pushed out not one, but two tweets (which were subsequently deleted) pressing for a cease-fire before Israel had finished counting its dead. Since then, the administration has made a point of emphasizing that its main priority following the war’s end is the speedy establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians are to be rewarded for the mass killing of Jews, while Israelis will be forced to live with the imminent threat of a repeat of Oct. 7—this time coming from two fronts instead of one.
It is no surprise, then, that the social signaling from the White House has made itself felt wherever progressives hold power. Academics at esteemed universities made statements explaining that Hamas’ savagery was justified. It would seem that the violent gang rape of Jewish women—unlike so many unfortunate college frat house dalliances—is not black and white, and instead requires “context” and endless questioning of the victims, who are often proclaimed to be fake.
Former President Barack Obama exhibited true restraint and waited until after the weekend had passed before he put forward his statement about the events of Oct. 7. When the cerebral Obama eventually chose to elaborate on his views in an interview, he characterized the situation of the Palestinian people as “unbearable.” “You have to admit that nobody’s hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree,” blathered the former president, who had championed and signed the Iran nuclear deal.
American Jews need to be clear about their own interests and opt out of the political verticals that are pushing them to engage in self-harm.
While we were perhaps not surprised to see an outpouring of support for Hamas in the Europe Angela Merkel made, conditions in the U.S. were not much different. Over 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in D.C. for a rally in which they attempted to scale the White House gates, vandalized public property, and defaced the “People’s House” with painted red “bloody” handprints in what ABC News described as a “passionate” protest. In New York, pro-Palestinian protesters climbed flag poles to tear down American flags and attempted to break down the doors of Grand Central station, temporarily closing access to the terminal. Jewish kids on a college campus cowered in fear, trapped in the library as pro-Palestinian students jeered outside. Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights were warned to stay indoors on Shabbat. In Los Angeles, a 69-year-old Jewish man was allegedly struck on the head by a pro-Palestinian protester with a megaphone resulting in his death, in what the medical examiner ruled as a homicide—or as an NBC News headline put it, “Man dies after hitting head.”
The insanity seemed unending. Black Lives Matter came out on the side of Hamas—could it be that the BLM movement doesn’t actually care about the persecution of a historic minority? pro-BLM Jews began to wonder. Queers for Palestine made their alliances known at every major rally. All of a sudden, many American Jewish liberals began to notice that those rag-tag groups of victims with whom they had previously allied themselves did not seem superfocused on justice or peace. Rather, they were hellbent on the dissolution of the so-called “oppressor” class, “by any means necessary.”
American Jewish liberals realized in the last two months that even though they represent only 0.2% of the global population and were nearly exterminated in Nazi gas chambers 80 years ago, they do not qualify as one of the oppressed minorities that they had so passionately advocated for. They were in fact the “oppressor” that “movements for justice” hope to destroy.
Antisemitism and Political Verticals
Over the course of two months, American Jews witnessed the vaporization of what they had previously imagined to be the best era, in the greatest country, for Jews in history. Wealthy Jews began questioning what had been done with the many millions of dollars they had donated to their alma mater. Some even began to wonder about all the money they donated to the Democratic Party. But voting for Republicans still appears to be a bridge too far. In fact, the first poll of U.S. Jewish voters since Oct. 7, shows 74% approval of Biden’s approach on Israel and Gaza, and 68% of U.S. Jewish voters backing Biden over Trump.
Being serious about antisemitism means being wise to the administration’s belittling of antisemitism by juxtaposing it with other forms of “hate.” It also means being discerning about what actually counts as antisemitism. The administration feels it can get away with its relativization of antisemitism in part because, for too long, we have allowed those in authority to claim that attacking liberal policies is somehow an attack on Judaism—or that attacking prominent supporters of Iran apologists and far-left ideologues like George Soros is inherently antisemitic.
But in pretending that anti-liberalism is antisemitism, we’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted and emotionally manipulated by people who do not have the best interests of American Jews at heart, and whose preferred policies—including large-scale immigration from countries where antisemitism is rampant—pose a clear and obvious danger to Jewish lives…..
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Continue reading this article at Tablet Magazine.
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