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As Antisemitism Rises, a Campaign Heats Up to Discredit the Term
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) questions Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on ‘Monetary Policy and the State of the Economy,’ in Washington, DC, July 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Erin Scott.
JNS.org – “The callousness, dehumanization and targeting of Jews on display at last night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism—plain and simple,” the Democratic congresswoman tweeted. “Antisemitism has no place in our city nor any broader movement that centers human dignity and liberation.”
Those words came from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a notorious critic of Israel and leading light in progressive circles.
What was most noteworthy, though, was the response from her fellow progressives. They accused her of selling out, of providing a fig leaf to the Jewish establishment. Some accused her of “getting a visit from your AIPAC babysitter.”
What’s going on?
“The blinding rage directed at AOC for daring to utter the word ‘antisemitism’ in relation to the pogromist mobs outside the Nova exhibit is something to behold,” tweeted Izabella Tabarovsky. These responses from progressive-Islamist friends, she added, “tell us something important about this moment.”
One thing it tells us is that just as antisemitism is reaching alarming levels, an even more alarming movement is afoot to discredit the term.
“Over the last few years there’s been a campaign going on to disarm, distort and discredit the very term antisemitism,” Tabarovsky writes. “One time-tested technique here is to create so much confusion & controversy around the term that people would feel too hesitant to condemn antisemitism or speak of it all.”
She lists a series of examples, as in 2021, when Bernie Sanders’ national surrogate, Amer Zahr, called on activists to stop condemning antisemitism: “Don’t condemn sh**, we have a cross-sectional, intersectional movement that is winning… Stop it. Stop it. Stay focused. Say free, free, Palestine and nothing else.”
Another instance was when Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) mobs forced Rutgers to withdraw a statement condemning antisemitism. Rutgers complied, promising to be more “sensitive & balanced” in the future.
She also cites the case of April Powers, a Black Jewish DEI professional who had to resign from her job after she put out a statement condemning antisemitism.
Back in 2021, Tabarovsky writes, “this all seemed shocking. Today it’s become completely normalized. Constant claims that antizionism is not antisemitism are playing a massive role in creating confusion and intimidation around the issue.”
That’s why any clear evidence that antisemitism is real, like the hatefest at the Nova exhibit that AOC condemned, must be attacked at once. The very notion of antisemitism must be delegitimized as a Zionist conspiracy, another nefarious Jewish attempt to shut down critics and control events.
Why has the term become such a growing threat to progressives?
For starters, it disrupts the oppressor/oppressed narrative that is their ideological lifeblood. Jews are stereotyped as white, Western and powerful, the ultimate exemplars of oppressive white privilege. They must never be allowed to be victims.
We saw this at work dramatically right after Oct. 7, when progressives came down hard on Israel and the Jews even though 1,200 Israelis got massacred by Hamas. The mutilation, the beheadings, the rapes, the burning alive of bodies were so staggering, it presented a nightmare scenario for progressives used to bashing the Jewish state as a genocidal, imperialist and colonialist bad actor.
Suddenly, these powerful Jews looked like victims, victims of the most savage Jew haters imaginable.
This new victim status for Jews was unacceptable, even if it was so blatantly justified—especially since it was so justified. It had to be nipped in the bud.
The progressive campaign to delegitimize the term antisemitism, then, is just another way of telling Jews to stay in their oppressor lane. Bashing a warring Israel is now the easiest way for the left to bash Jews.
But there’s something even bigger at play: The war against Israel is also a war against everything progressives hate about the West. That’s why the term antisemitism must be discredited. Bad guys can never be victims.
The leftist media, which consistently downplay antisemitism from the left, have become the great enablers.
“The New York Times has published countless stories about the rhetoric of participants in the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,” Christine Rosen wrote in Commentary in a piece titled, “Why the Media Ignore Anti-Semitism.”
“Where are the big-think pieces and deeply reported stories about the organizations and funders behind the anti-Jewish groups staging protests outside synagogues and other Jewish institutions?”
As Rich Lowry writes in National Review Online, “every day is a Charlottesville now, but hardly anyone notices…The antisemitic rhetoric and menacing nature of that event—in a different, left-wing form—are being replicated all over the country in openly hateful pro-Hamas protests.”
If white supremacists were showing up all over the country and agitating against Jews and vandalizing property, he asks, “Can you imagine the headlines and nightly news reports?”
We’re left with this bizarre landscape where, on one side, Jewish activist groups are exposing the spooky rise of antisemitism from the left, while on the other side, progressive groups are undermining the very idea of antisemitism, encouraging people to disregard the whole thing as a Jewish-Zionist con.
Meanwhile, Jewish progressives must be disillusioned to see how so much of the Jew hatred these days is coming from inside their own house. Will they walk on eggshells so as not to alienate their progressive comrades, or will they have the courage to tell it like it is, even if it hurts their team?
When even AOC rings the alarm, you know we’ve entered new territory.
Originally published by The Jewish Journal.
The post As Antisemitism Rises, a Campaign Heats Up to Discredit the Term first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove reflects on presidential inaugurations, past and present
The 60th inauguration ceremony for the president of the United States will take place on Jan. 20. Under the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1933, the inauguration takes place on that date—unless Jan. 20 is a Sunday, in which case the public inauguration takes place the next day, following a private swearing-in ceremony.
The inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States took place in New York City in 1789.
This drawing of Washington with his name in Yiddish (note ‘George’ in Yiddish is eight letters) and his title as the first “Amerikanisher President” is from a fold-out New Year’s booklet published in the late 1890s in New York by Katzenelenbogen Music Publishers. Judah Katzenelenbogen was a co-founder of the American Hebrew Publishing Company and a publisher of sheet music for Yiddish songs.
In 1790, Washington wrote a letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and stated that life in the new nation would be different. People would be free to practice their religion and not simply be tolerated, and the government would not interfere with individuals’ beliefs.
“For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support,” Washington wrote.
“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants: while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
The reference that “none shall be afraid while sitting under their vine and fig tree,” is from Micah 4:4 and was used by Washington in his writings almost 50 times.
As a new American presidency begins, let us hope that Washington’s wish for Jewish Americans is fulfilled not just for them but for all, regardless of where they may be sitting.
The post Treasure Trove reflects on presidential inaugurations, past and present appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Iran Holding War Games as It Faces Israel Tensions, Trump’s Return
Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Iran was holding air defense exercises on Saturday, state media reported, as the country braces for more friction with arch-enemy Israel and the United States under incoming US president Donald Trump.
The war games take place as Iranian leaders face the risk that Trump could empower Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, while further tightening US sanctions on its oil industry through his “maximum pressure” policy.
“In these exercises, … defense systems will practice the fight against air, missile and electronic warfare threats in real battlefield conditions… to protect the country’s skies and sensitive and vital areas,” Iranian state television said.
Saturday’s drills are part of two-months-long exercises launched on Jan. 4 which have already included war games in which the elite Revolutionary Guards defended key nuclear installations in Natanz against mock attacks by missiles and drones, state media said.
Iran’s military has said it was using new drones and missiles in the exercises and released footage of a new underground “missile city” being visited by Guards Commander-in-Chief Major General Hossein Salami.
Iran has recently suffered setbacks in Lebanon after Israeli attacks against Iranian-backed Hezbollah and the toppling of Tehran’s ally President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria last month.
But Salami warned, in a speech carried by state TV about a “false sense of delight” among Iran’s enemies, saying Iran and particularly its missile forces were stronger than ever.
While Iranian officials have downplayed Iran’s setbacks, an Iranian general, Behrouz Esbati, who was reportedly based in Syria, said in a speech circulated on social media that Iran had “badly lost” in Syria. Reuters could not verify the recording.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 in which Iran agreed to curb uranium enrichment, which can yield material for nuclear weapons, in return for the relaxation of US and U.N. economic sanctions.
The post Iran Holding War Games as It Faces Israel Tensions, Trump’s Return first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Targets Hezbollah Terrorists as Lebanese Army Deploys
US special envoy Amos Hochstein speaks to the media after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
JNS.org – Israeli Air Force craft on Saturday targeted terrorists exiting a “military” building in Southern Lebanon that belonged to Hezbollah, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.
After their detection, the IAF acted to “remove the threat,” the statement continued.
“The IDF continues to be committed to the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon, is deployed in the Southern Lebanon region and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens,” the military added.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Armed Forces said in a statement on X that its troops were completing their deployment in eight towns near the Israeli border, as well as in the coastal area between Naqoura and Tyre, ahead of the projected withdrawal of the IDF by the end of the month.
The Lebanese Armed Forces said it was cooperating with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the five-member committee supervising the truce in implementing the deployment.
The LAF called on civilians not to approach the area as it was conducting engineering work to remove unexploded ordnance and to clear rubble off the roads.
According to the Beirut-based, Hezbollah-affiliated Al Akhbar newspaper, US envoy Amos Hochstein has assured Lebanese officials that Israel will fully withdraw its forces from Southern Lebanon as outlined in the 60-day ceasefire agreement that took effect on Nov. 27.
Hochstein met with senior Lebanese officials this past week, among them former army chief Joseph Aoun, whom parliament on Thursday elected president of the country.
According to the report, the US envoy obtained a detailed schedule from Israel with regard to its exit from Lebanon, citing Jan. 26 as the deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw.
Hochstein reportedly asked Beirut to strengthen its army units and raise its level of preparedness, in order to guarantee that the weapons and ammunition belonging to Hezbollah south of the Litani River will be handed over to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Lebanese army officials told the American diplomat that an agreement with Hezbollah was struck and that the LAF will soon announce the removal of all private weapons and all “militant” groups in Southern Lebanon that are not officially under the Lebanese government’s orders.
The post IDF Targets Hezbollah Terrorists as Lebanese Army Deploys first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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