I'm not sure why anyone is surprised. There is an intense and growing hostility to Israel on the hard Left, and there's quite a bit of overlap between "anti-Zionists" and anti-Semites. In many cases, the former phenomenon is the modern, politically acceptable manifestation of the latter. When Rep. Ilhan Omar spewed some flagrantly anti-Semitic rhetoric a few years back, Democrats' left-wing base rallied to her cause and successfully pressured Nancy Pelosi to rewrite a condemnatory resolution to de-emphasize Omar's anti-Semitism by expanding it into a watery denunciation of many forms of bigotry. It was deliberately transformed from a specific rebuke of anti-Semitism to a meaningless "all hate matters" document. "All lives matter" is an offensive reply to "Black lives matter," they say – and I've come to better understand why many people believe that. Yet it would appear that the progressive Left's go-to reaction to rank anti-Semitism, including Jews being hunted down and beaten in the streets, is to "all lives matter" the problem. It's not a coincidence that prominent leftists in American politics have chosen to castigate rising anti-Jewish hate, but not without mentioning Islamophobia in the same digital breath:
"Antisemitism and Islamophobia" thread.
— Noam Blum ?? (@neontaster) May 24, 2021
1 pic.twitter.com/siLGeo2l6H
— Noam Blum ?? (@neontaster) May 24, 2021
— Noam Blum ?? (@neontaster) May 24, 2021
This, but also this other thing. "Whatabout" Islamophobia? Anyone surprised to see members of the Squad embracing this deflection – especially one who refuses to meet with her local community's Jewish newspaper? One observer notes that this was the same playbook used by Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, as his Labour Party was overrun by far-left anti-Semites, en route to an electoral shellacking from which the party has still not recovered:
When Corbyn was confronted on antisemitism in Labour, he would *frequently* condemn Islamophobia, something his party wasn’t accused of. The purpose was to frame the Tories as having a problem too. Antisemitism was strictly political, and Bernie seems to be carrying that torch. https://t.co/t5RLq9pO8t
— Blake Flayton (@blakeflayton) May 23, 2021
No wonder some American liberals are nervously eyeing Labour's decline these days. More mainstream and old guard Democrats remain much better on this issue, and on the US-Israeli alliance more broadly, but the ascendant progressive generation and movement represents a horse of a different color. Democrats are fracturing over Israel, and the openly pro-Palestinian contingent already outnumbers the clearly pro-Israel one, according to this new poll:
POLL: U.S. voters' sympathies in Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by party...https://t.co/ihbso75fNj pic.twitter.com/11cWUI3GEM
— Bruce Mehlman (@bpmehlman) May 22, 2021
Among all Americans aged 18-29, not just Democrats, solidarity with the Palestinians narrowly eclipses solidarity with Israel – the only age bracket in which that is the case. Allahpundit and others are also noting that the hard Left is sometimes willing to furiously condemn anti-Semitism, depending on the identity of the perpetrator:
When it’s a white supremacist rather than a Palestinian sympathizer who’s attacking Jews, they’re clear as a bell about who the victim is...Given how progressives race and victimization, and the tendency to map U.S. domestic politics onto the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it’s apparently intolerable for some leftists to treat Jews as the victims in a confrontation with Palestinian sympathizers even when Jews are getting jumped by morons in keffiyehs carrying Palestinian flags. The best we’re going to get from the woke brigades on that is "anti-semitism and Islamophobia are both wrong."
We've seen similar...hesitancy on the Left, including within the news media, to talk about anti-Asian hate crimes and assaults that are carried out by non-whites. The woke grievance hierarchy of victimhood is a complex beast. I'll leave you with this. No remorse:
'I would do it again': Suspect accused of pummeling NYC Jewish man shows no remorse https://t.co/2tyc3bxUNf pic.twitter.com/AqDd2Dipty
— New York Post (@nypost) May 23, 2021
Waseem Awawdeh, 23, was held on $10,000 bail in the Thursday attack, in which he is accused of beating Joseph Borgen, 29, with crutches and punching, kicking and pepper-spraying him...“If I could do it again, I would do it again,” he told one of his jailers, according to a prosecutor at Awawdeh’s Saturday arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court. “I have no problem doing it again.”
And may I remind you that the "anti-Zionists" are effectively, if not openly, propagandizing on behalf of Hamas, the genocidal terrorist organization that admits targeting civilians deliberately:
Hamas spokesman confirms Hamas is committing war crimes. He tells @Stone_SkyNews that international law gives Hamas the right to ignore international law and wage war "by all feasible means." He confirms that Hamas fires rockets from civilian areas and targets Israeli civilians. pic.twitter.com/fnJ3wUf7qn
— Daniel Rubenstein (@paulrubens) May 22, 2021
But the Jewish state is at fault, you see, for defending its people while bending over backward to minimize harm to civilians. What a twisted mindset.
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