The distracted obsessions of progressive American Jews

T. Belman. Jews in California hate Trump with a passion. Melanie has the courage to point this out.

They accuse President Trump of sowing social division, hatred and anti-Semitism. They can’t see that that they are themselves effectively enabling social division, hatred and anti-Semitism by their spurious equivalence, tunnel vision and outright double standards.

By Melanie, Phillips, jns

(November 15, 2018 / JNS) Having spent the past week or so in Los Angeles, I have been struck once again by the deep anxiety in the American Jewish community over the intensifying demonization of Israel on campus and over self-styled progressive Jews.

I have also been exposed to the even more intense divisions within that community over President Donald Trump. One of the most bizarre conceits among those who hate him is that he’s an anti-Semite, or at the very least knowingly encourages antisemites.

A guest of the Hanukkah celebration at the White House last year told me he had the opportunity to observe the president up close.

Surrounded by Jewish friends and Republican colleagues, Trump said proudly when his family arrived: “Here are my Jewish grandchildren.” It was simply inconceivable, said my informant, that anyone could seriously believe there was an anti-Semitic bone in his body.

For those who hate him, however, it’s as if all the evils and problems in the world are somehow his fault. It’s not simply a question of loathing his uncouthness or finding his personality objectionable. He has become their obsession. He occupies their every waking thought. He is their personal demon.

The same people, however, are overwhelmingly silent about the anti-Semites and Israel-bashers in the Democratic Party, more of whom have been elected to Congress in the mid-terms.

There’s silence from such quarters over Ilhan Omar, elected in Minnesota and who has said: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Silence over Rashida Tlaib, elected for a Michigan seat and who, asked if she would vote against military aid to Israel, replied: “Absolutely … I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice.”

Silence, too, over Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, despite their support for Louis Farrakhan who raves about “satanic” Jews.

This evacuation of morality over American politics has echoes of the way Israel itself is treated: demonized by falsehoods and distortion while Palestinian depravity and anti-Semitism are ignored or even sanitized.

The issues of Trump and Israel intersect among many progressive Jews in a further distressing way.

They hate Trump also for his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which they think has somehow prevented peace in our time in the Middle East. And they hate Israel even more because Israel regards Trump as a true friend—not least because he moved the embassy to Jerusalem.

So Trump, himself toxified through an unhinged thought process which casts him as an enabler of anti-Semitism, is therefore in turn toxifying Israel in the eyes of progressive Jews—and all because he’s actually so philo-Semitic, one of the most pro-Israel presidents in American history.

Just how crazy is this?

Meanwhile, the problem remains how to combat BDS on campus. This weekend, despite an outcry, a conference is taking place at UCLA held by National Students for Justice in Palestine.

NSJP has a record not only of advocating Israel’s eventual destruction and supporting pro-terrorism figures, but also bullying and intimidating pro-Israel and Jewish students with vicious and sometimes anti-Semitic rhetoric and even physical violence.

Yet UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has refused to cancel the conference on the basis that all forms of speech must be permitted on campus.

He has acknowledged that anti-Israel statements can turn into “hostility against the Jewish people.” However, he said, NSJP still had a legal right to host its conference even if this was “infused with anti-Semitic rhetoric.”

“Ultimately,” he wrote, “we must combat speech that is distasteful with more and better speech.”

Would he say the same if, say, David Duke or the Aryan Nations group wanted to speak on campus? Of course not; these would rightly be seen as contributing nothing to rational debate but posing instead a threat to minority students.

To put it another way, despite expressing concern about NSJP Block is implicitly accepting there is some validity in what they say. But since he accepts their discourse is “infused with anti-Semitic rhetoric,” he should consider no part of that discourse to be acceptable. He writes of “democracy’s commitment to open debate.” He therefore appears to believe that democracy has a commitment to permit anti-Semitism.

As Judea Pearl, professor of computer science at UCLA and father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, wrote to the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles: “This is ‘viewpoint neutrality’ UCLA style.” He continued:

“When xenophobic Milo Yiannopoulos requested to speak at UCLA [he was invited by Republican students last February to speak on ‘Ten things I hate about Mexico’] Chancellor Block wrote (paraphrased): I can’t stop you legally but be aware, you are not exactly welcome on this campus, you are in fact disgusting, your values clash with ours.

“When antisemitic-Zionophobic NSJP requested to speak at UCLA, Chancellor Block wrote (paraphrased): I can’t stop you legally, but I won’t stop you even if I could, here’s why, here’s why, here’s why.”

Even Los Angeles City Council unanimously called on UCLA to cancel the conference, with one member telling Block he was “shocked and disappointed” that it was allowing it to occur.

Yet the response by both Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League echoed Block’s feebleness. UCLA Hillel Director Aaron Lerner said: “The Chancellor has made his voice heard, and confirmed his opposition to BDS. That’s a win.”

You wonder what Lerner would consider a loss. As for the ADL, it said it was “deeply concerned about the potential impact the SJP conference might have on the campus climate at UCLA,” and “on the safety and security of all students on campus.”

It called upon the university to ensure “that all UCLA communities are treated with respect, free from vilification and harassment, and to continue to denounce messages coming from SJP that are to the contrary.”

But allowing the NSJP to spread their poison on campus makes all students unsafe. Despite acknowledging this, though, the ADL accepts their right to do so.

Free speech is not an absolute right. It must be limited if it incites harm. Promoting Jew-hatred causes harm.

Yet like other campuses, UCLA permits this while kowtowing to those who want to silence free speech on the grounds of merely sparing people’s feelings—as in the troubling dismissal of conservative communication-studies lecturer Keith Fink, who had expressed robust views critical of UCLA on, of all issues, freedom of speech.

Progressive Jews and others accuse President Trump of sowing social division, hatred and anti-Semitism. They can’t see that that they are themselves effectively enabling social division, hatred and anti-Semitism by their spurious equivalence, tunnel vision and outright double standards.

The more they scream about Trump, the more they create an alibi for that very same ugliness in their own souls. And that, of course, is precisely what anti-Semites do to the Jews and to Israel.

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a column for JNS every two weeks. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which has also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” released in April. Her work can be found at her website,www.melaniephillips.com.

November 16, 2018 | 3 Comments »

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  1. Isi Leibler’s column in today’s (November 17 Jerusalem Post adds further support to Melanie’s conclusions about the present mental state of American Jewry:

    Candidly Speaking: Trump, Nazis and American Jewry
    Police officers guard the Tree of Life synagogue following shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh
    Police officers guard the Tree of Life synagogue following shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 27, 2018. (photo credit: JOHN ALTDORFER/REUTERS)
    As the global antisemitic tsunami intensifies, most Diaspora Jews seem to have lost the plot. In the past, when an external foe emerged, Jews would put aside their differences and unite in the face of those seeking their destruction. Prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews suffered from persecution, pogroms and murder, culminating in the Shoah.

    Today, despite a powerful Jewish state that can provide a haven to Jews facing persecution, Diaspora Jews are utterly disunited, and many of them seem to have lost their bearings. They are laying the foundations for an unprecedented eruption of violent antisemitism.

    Despite the tragedy of the brutal slaying of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh, American Jewry remains the most peaceful community in the Diaspora. And even today, despite the election of radical anti-Jewish elements – including self-hating Jews – within the Democratic Party, there are still more pro-Israel elements in Congress after the midterm elections.

    Those elections took place in an unprecedented atmosphere of political hysteria.

    But despite predictions of defeat, it would seem that President Donald Trump was the overall winner.

    In virtually all midterm elections, the ruling party experiences losses. The country is divided. The larger cities lean Democrat and mid-America is overwhelmingly pro-Trump. The concept of respect for a president, which has prevailed over most of America’s history since the Civil War, no longer exists. The nation is divided down the middle with most voters being either passionate lovers or zealous haters of Trump – with Jews at the forefront of the hatred.

    While the Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives, they lost fewer seats than the Democrats did when losing the House in the 1994 and 2010 midterms. And more importantly, they held, and perhaps widened, their majority in the Senate (where two races remain undecided).

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    Thus, while Trump will face ongoing tensions domestically, the Democrats will have to be careful not to be seen as extreme and subsequently generate further backlash. And Trump has a virtual free hand in continuing to direct foreign policy. Even more importantly, he will strengthen conservative elements in the higher and lower courts, undoubtedly altering the liberal mentality that has dominated American courts in recent generations.

    THERE IS one bizarre aspect to this. The clear majority of Jewish Americans continued the tradition of voting Democratic and have emerged as leaders of the anti-Trump brigade. The fact that many Jews with a liberal tradition oppose Trump’s conservative policies and dislike his aggressive tone is not surprising. But what is incomprehensible is the hysterical abuse they shower on the president – and that they do so in a Jewish context. The almost lunatic attacks on a president by such a wide section of the Jewish community – including progressive rabbis, Jewish lay organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish women’s groups, which had until now avoided partisan politics – is utterly unprecedented.

    The venom expressed suggests that a dybbuk – a malicious spirit – has instilled a collective madness on a major component of the American Jewish community. Jews even demanded that Trump not be present at the mourning ceremony in the Pittsburgh synagogue.

    Some Jewish leaders blamed him for the massacre, alleging that his aggressive political style was responsible for the actions of the lone neo-Nazi antisemite. Never mind the other shooting rampages perpetrated during previous administrations, for which no president was held responsible. Nobody blamed President Barack Obama for the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting which killed 50 people, nor the other 37 mass shootings during his tenure.

    Antisemitism escalated well before Trump’s election. The media, buttressed by the ADL and other Jewish groups, have repeatedly alleged that today its new waves primarily represent white nationalist antisemitism. They include in their fake figures Internet hoaxes that were not even motivated by Jew-hatred. The facts belie this. Beyond occasional mad neo-Nazi fringes on the radical Right, the situation has remained constant. The principal sources of visceral antisemitism are still Muslim extremists, as well as the burgeoning far Left which leads the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish pack.

    One thing is clear: American Jews do need to employ security services at synagogues, schools and community centers as is the case today in virtually every Diaspora community around the world.

    IT IS NOTEWORTHY that the ever-growing influence of anti-Israel and antisemitic elements seeking to radicalize the Democratic Party is rarely mentioned by the liberal press or the ADL. In the midterm elections, a number of Democratic candidates hostile to Israel and Jews won seats – some in districts with significant Jewish populations.

    Nor have there been serious efforts to restrain burgeoning antisemitism from pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel left-wing groups on college campuses.

    There were few complaints when Obama treated Israel like a rogue state and characterized Israeli self-defense and Palestinian terrorism as being morally equivalent. And there are few complaints now, after it was recently revealed that in 2005 Obama met the head of the Nation of Islam, the radical antisemite Louis Farrakhan, for a photo op.

    The allegations that Trump contributed to the current polarization of society by his aggressive rhetoric may be true, but that is more than matched by the hysteria from the Democrats.

    This is intensified by the dramatic revolution in social media, which – in contrast to only 20 years ago – reaches a massive audience, including extreme hate-mongers. It may well be time to review America’s credo of upholding unlimited freedom of expression. We should assess this in the context of today’s social media, which undoubtedly serves as a platform for promoting racism, violence, and above all, antisemitism.

    By far, the most obscene aspect of this mudslinging is the concerted Jewish attempt to portray Trump as tolerating Nazis and being an antisemite. This lie has been reproduced so frequently in recent months by progressive rabbis and Jewish lay leaders that it has become embedded in the minds of many Democratic supporters.

    But this reflects the madness in the air. Trump has a daughter who converted to Judaism and is religiously observant; he has always had Jewish friends; some of his key executive officers are Jews; and following the tragedy in Pittsburgh, he made a statement condemning antisemitism that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not have expressed better.

    BUT ABOVE ALL, Trump has proven to be the most pro-Israel president since the state was established. He is the first to have told the Palestinians the truth and reduced funds that were not being used appropriately; he stopped funding UNESCO when that organization admitted Palestine as a full member; he told the Palestinians to forget about their claimed right of return to Israel; he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem despite enormous pressures; he warned the Palestinians that paying salaries to murderers and aid to their families was unacceptable; and he was the first to stand up, virtually alone, to promote Israel’s case to the world.

    Now, American Jews may hate Trump, but to describe this man as pro-Nazi and an antisemite qualifies them collectively as crazy.
    What is more alarming is that if this psychotic behavior accusing Trump of Nazi sentiments is not quashed, Middle America, which adores Trump and has supported his Israeli policies with far greater enthusiasm than the Jews, could unleash their frustrations against the “ungrateful” Jews, and then the ADL predictions about antisemitism would be realized.

    We live in troubled times. While Israel has never been as well off as it is today, throughout the Diaspora antisemitism is rising dramatically – and now many American Jews seem to be acting like lemmings on a suicide march.

    The tragedy is that Israel, which formerly served as the vital factor maintaining Jewish identity for those with limited Jewish education, has now drifted almost into irrelevancy for large swathes of American Jewry. Unless a massive effort is invested into overcoming Jewish illiteracy, the future seems bleak.

    Those concerned with having Jewish grandchildren should now seriously evaluate making aliyah or at least encouraging their children to do so.

    The writer’s website can be viewed at http://www.wordfromjerusalem.com.
    He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com

  2. Numerically 4.48 million people in California voted for Trump including Jews. Yes this was a minority as California is Dem party stronghold.

    However in our generalizations we should not forget that there are more Trump voters in California than in even in Texas. Only Florida with 4.6 million voters had more voters for Trump.

  3. I am disgusted with California’s “progressives”, Jewish and otherwise. The whole state could be burning in Hell, and they would still find time to condemn the president who is trying to help them.