Anti-Semitism Is Back In Fashion

In the United States, Jews have long been stalwarts of the Democratic Party. Indeed, they’ve never voted for Republicans by more than about 40% (Reagan) and typically they do about half that: McCain got 21%, Bush got 19%. But the left’s passion for a little anti-Semitism will not be denied. And Jews may soon find themselves in an uncomfortable position vis-à-vis the Democratic Party.

Until the late 1980s, the Democrats promoted the idea that Republicans are anti-Semitic. Indeed, you heard this claim a lot: that Republicans “hated” blacks, women and Jews. This was usually supported with some vague urban legend about some religious right personality talking about converting Jews or sometimes a mention of the Inquisition. . . I kid you not. This was then combined with a demand for unquestioned support for Israel.

Then Bill Clinton came along.

It wasn’t that Clinton was anti-Semitic, because he wasn’t. But after Clinton decided to make Middle-East peace his legacy, Israel elected the Likud Party, which refused to playing along with Clinton’s “peace process.” Team Clinton responded by becoming the first American administration I can think of that broke with the unquestioned support for Israel stance (in fact, they actively undermined Likud). Suddenly, it became acceptable to disagree with Israel in liberal circles.

At the same time, Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam ilk were making inroads in both the black community and the Democratic Party. This is a group that railed against Jews, particularly buying into the world-wide Zionist/banking conspiracy theories, and preached to blacks that Jews were “the hooked-nose blood suckers of the black community.” Interestingly, this wasn’t condemned by liberals at the time, unlike Jesse Jackson calling New York “Hymietown” in 1984.

In 2006, Israel attacked Lebanon. The wire services and groups like Al Jazeera slanted their coverage of this war to make Israel look like it was trying to kill civilians. In fact, at least one Reuters reporter got caught faking photos of supposedly dead civilians. But the deceptions worked and the world was outraged, including many in the anti-War/ anti-Bush left in the US. Suddenly, members of the American left were demanding war crimes charges be brought against Israel.

Fast forward to the financial crisis in 2008. When Wall Street imploded. The left started tossing around all the historical anti-Semitic stereotypes only without the word “Jew” attached to them. In other words, it became acceptable for leftists to rail against “Jewish bankers” so long as they only implied the “Jewish” part.

Then Obama got elected. Obama came through Rev. Wright’s “Christian” version of the Nation of Islam and his friends were 1960s radicals. Why does this matter? Because some of the radicals were Palestinians who had been fighting Israel for decades.

In 2010, a group of Palestinians tried to force their way through the Israeli blockade of Gaza. They used force and Israeli commandos responded by killing nine “activists.” The liberal world was outraged at Israel and friend-of-Obama Bill Ayers and Code Pink both became involved in trying to break the blockade and get Israel condemned at the UN.

Later in 2010, OWS is born from a jackass. . . like Damien from The Omen only dumber. Within days they start trotting out anti-Semitic statements and carrying anti-Semitic signs. They even allowed the NeoNazis to join them in some locations.

Just this week, Obama’s ambassador to Belgium told an audience that there are two types of anti-Semitism, the “traditional” kind, “which should be condemned,” and Muslim hatred for Jews, “which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians” and which, by implication, is apparently acceptable.

Enter George Soros.

The Center for American Progress, the Democratic Party’s “key hub of ideas and strategy,” and George Soros’s Media Matters have started attacking the Democratic Party’s “staunchly pro-Israel congressional leadership.” In fact, they have gone to war with those who would support Israel:

● MJ Rosenberg of Media Matters spends his days online “heaping vitriol” on those who support Israel. In particular, he openly questions the loyalty of the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin when it comes to Israel. . . this is an old tactic of anti-Semites and racists, to suggest secret foreign loyalties.

● Both CAP and Media Matters have attacked anyone who tries to argue that Iran is trying to build a bomb, even the White House, as Israeli stooges. CAP’s Eric Alterman accused the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC of trying to get America to go to war for Israel and called this AIPAC’s “big prize.”

● They attack people who support sanctions against Iran as “Israel-firsters,” implying racial supremacist beliefs in such actions. In one instance, Rosenberg blasted Democrat Brad Sherman for supporting sanctions as “the most ugly expression yet of this country’s almost bizarre obsession with punishing Iran, its people along with its government.” Note the idea that opposition to Iran is aimed at Iran’s people, i.e. “racism,” and it’s a result of a mental condition.

● Matt Duss at CAP wrote this: “Like segregation in the American South, the siege of Gaza, and the entire Israeli occupation for that matter, is a moral abomination that should be intolerable to anyone claiming progressive values.”

● They get really conspiratorial too. For example, Eli Clifton of ThinkProgress attacked a Quinnipiac poll that referenced Iran’s “nuclear program” because the poll was creating a presumption that such a program exists when there is no “definitive evidence.”

● And they actually called Holder’s idiotic idea that Iran is working with Mexican drug cartels a creation of “conservative think tanks” and AIPAC.

Incredibly, CAP only halfheartedly distanced itself from this after people pointed out these comments were “borderline anti-Semitic.” Incredibly, they claimed these comments, posted on their own blog, were not their official opinions. Yet, they have not taken them down, retracted them, condemned them, or fired anyone.

So what you have here is THE Democratic think tank and THE group that controls the media for the Democrats turning on Israel and batting about the idea that Jews in American (AIPAC) have some hidden control over our government which is being used to help world-wide Jewish interests. This is otherwise known as the International Zionist Conspiracy conspiracy theory. It is anti-Semitism at its worst.

Add in the fact the Democrats have made the Wall Street banker into the new enemy of mankind and their street urchins are actively spouting anti-Semitism in support of this, and American Jews may want to rethink their relationship to the Democratic Party.

The trend is there. I wouldn’t ignore it.