Anti-Israel protests have become anti-Jewish expressions of hatred. With the murder of Samantha Woll, has the pro-Palestinian crowd stepped over the line to violence and murder?
Samantha Woll was the president of her downtown Detroit synagogue. She set up a Jewish-Muslim dialogue program. She was stabbed to death yesterday. Those few facts are the only ones we have. I do not pretend to have information that her murder was related to antisemitic/anti-Israel activity that has been expressed on campus and in major cities of the US and the West of late. Maybe it was a robbery that went sideways or a disturbed person like the ones who pushed people onto subway tracks in New York. I assume that the police will have more information in the coming days. One might note that the murder occurred in Rashida Tlaib’s district. Coincidence? We’ll have to wait to find out.
Devout Muslims who are entirely opposed to homosexuality and women getting education and working outside of the house (think: Taliban) need the leftist organizations for their anti-Israel rallies. Imagine if only Muslim students at Harvard protested Israel and showed their support for Hamas. How many would show up? A couple of dozen? Maybe a hundred tops? The anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Muslims need the Western Left to give legitimacy and heft. While England has taken in many immigrants from Pakistan and other Muslim countries, of the 100,000 who marched in favor of Hamas on Saturday, how many were non-Muslim liberals? Environmentalists for Antisemitism. Trans for Antisemitism. Gays for Antisemitism. And so on. Having the Left—even those whose views are repugnant to the Koran—is a boon to pro-Hamas protesters as it makes their support for the barbaric murder and rape of civilians seem more mainstream. “Look how many white people were there with placards saying that Israel caused the murder of 1,400 of its own people!” The Muslims need the liberal Left for legitimacy and to make their support of a new Jewish holocaust seem acceptable.
But what does the Left get out of it? Many on the Left—even Jews—are anti-Israel and are not perturbed when rhetoric and signs move to the antisemitic. Greta Thunberg, Sweden’s contributor to making this world worse, held a sign that read “Stand with Gaza.” One with a third-grade education might conclude that standing with Gaza means standing against Israel and its current military campaign in Gaza. Is Greta telling us that Jews have no right to protect themselves? Is she suggesting that Hamas gets a free pass for the barbaric behavior whose details are still coming out as the bodies of those murdered are being examined in Israel?
Those on the Left need the Jew-hating Muslims because they are bored. Yes, they have the activities that give them purpose—fighting to save the environment, pushing for letting guys pretend to be women to whip girls in sports. But with the Muslims, the action goes to 11. Loud protests, wearing a keffiyeh, attacking Israel—this beats sitting around and talking about future policy positions that will be published in some obscure journal. For the Left, the anti-Israel/pro-Hamas/Jew-
The problem right now has to do with Samantha Woll. Again, we do not know the circumstances under which she was murdered. We know that antisemitic acts are up in the UK and elsewhere. The Left does not appreciate that some of the Muslims with whom they lock arms may not just support killing way over there in Israel but might be willing to kill right at home in the US. They openly support Hamas’ pogrom against the Jews of southern Israel. They are thrilled with all of the torture, rape, and beheading that took place. They think it’s cool that fellow Americans are being held against their will in Gaza. Some of them might even wish they had been there in Kibbutz Be’eri to burn families alive. So, while the Muslims need the Left for heft and the Left needs the Muslims for purpose, what happens when some percentage of the Muslims supporting Hamas go beyond placards and get involved with violence against Jews? Smashing windows? Beating up Jews in New York? Or maybe stabbing a Jew to death? I don’t think the Left bought into that part of the program, and many of those marching with the Hamas supporters are Jewish. A day will come when the Muslims will no longer need the Jews gays, or tree huggers, and they will express exactly how they feel about them to their former compatriots. The question is, what happens to Jews in the US when that occurs?
If Samantha Woll’s death was an antisemitic act—which, again, at this early point, we do not know—then the following steps are critical. If the Department of Justice, FBI, and local law enforcement do not work to end these antisemitic Hamas lovefest protests, then Mrs. Woll may not be the last harmed. Anyone illegally in the US involved in these protests needs to be deported. Anyone who has violated the terms of his/her visa needs to be deported. Anyone expressing suggestions of violence (“fighting words”) needs to be arrested. The rest should be blacklisted for future employment, as has occurred in part with those who signed the antisemitic screed at Harvard.
I was asked the other day if I experienced antisemitism growing up in the US. While I know that the custom on the Left is to look for any slight, even something minor, in order to become a victim, I can honestly say that I did not. I was very fortunate to have Jewish and non-Jewish friends, and I never felt treated differently because I was a Jew. Sure, there were activities for non-Jews, but I never felt that I was poorly treated or looked down upon because I was Jewish. This has been an extraordinary blessing of the US for Jews living there. It is my hope that this arrangement will continue, as it is, I believe, good both for Jews and for the US itself. If Mrs. Woll was murdered because she was a Jew, law enforcement must make sure that she is the last Hamas victim on US soil. And the Left should jettison its Hamas crush. The Muslims with whom they march see dead Jews in Israel and elsewhere as the same.