During a visit to an infamous Nazi concentration camp last week, Vice President Mike Pence condemned rising anti-Semitic sentiment and rhetoric around the world: "Well we just walked to the end of the road of anti-Semitism in Auschwitz and that's why anti-Semitism needs to be universally condemned," he said. "And you know, you see a rise of anti-Semitic violence in Europe, I saw a report last week. I think it was in France, of a rise in anti-Semitic violence, horrific attack in Pittsburgh, and that's, you know the history in Central Europe, that's how it begins. "It begins with vile rhetoric, then proceeds into violence," Pence continued, before going on to passionately defend the state of Israel while condemning the virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American regime in Iran. Pence's words come at a time in which anti-Semitic violence and hate-caused incidents are spiking across the West.
In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party has been roiled over anti-Jewish bias, including multiple controversies involving the hardcore leftist opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. Things have gotten so bad that a Jewish Labourite member of Parliament needed personal security at her own party's conference. The toxic environment is so acute that a group of MP's have disassociated themselves from their own party in a mass resignation:
Seven MPs — Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker, & Ann Coffey — just left the Labour Party in protest.
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) February 18, 2019
Though they gave a number of different reasons, a unifying theme seemed to be a rejection of the anti-Semitism of Jeremy Corbyn. https://t.co/l36wSo418G
(Update: An eighth joins the group, prompting this egregious, point-proving response from a Labour group). Over on the continent, two major governments have recently reported significant spikes in anti-Semitic events. First, Germany:
Anti-Semitic crimes rose by 10 percent in Germany in 2018, with a 60 percent increase in violent crimes, spurring the main Jewish umbrella group there to call for a “stronger commitment” from police and politicians... Nationwide, there were 1,646 anti-Semitic crimes registered in 2018, up from 1,504 the previous year. Of these, 62 were violent attacks, up from 37 in 2017. According to the Tagesspiegel, 43 people were injured in antisemitic attacks last year. A total of 857 suspects were identified, but there was only evidence for 19 arrests.
And in France:
Anti-Semitic attacks increased in France last year by more than 70 percent, according to figures released last week by the French government. Reuters reported Tuesday that the country saw 500 reported instances of anti-Semitic incidents in 2018, a 74 percent increase from the year before...In one incident, a crowd of protesters reportedly gathered around well-known Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Alain Finkielkraut, demanding that he return to Tel Aviv over his support for Israel, according to the outlet.
Authorities have blamed the growing spate of hate on a nasty combination of left-wing extremism, right-wing extremism, and Islamism. And the hits keep coming:
#UPDATE Nearly 100 graves have been daubed with swastikas at a Jewish cemetery in #Quatzenheim, eastern France, authorities say, with President Macron vowing to crack down on hate crimes as the country grapples with a surge in anti-Semitic acts https://t.co/YUSF05MmUn
— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 19, 2019
Here in the United States, anti-Semitic crimes have also increased in recent years -- with Jews being targeted in an outright majority of all religious-based hate crimes (despite Jews accounting for a little over one percent of the US population). Frighteningly, there has been a spate of ugly assaults in Brooklyn, which haven't gotten much attention beyond local reports. Ben Shapiro writes that the national press has been too busy focusing on a narrative-driving hoax:
The media ran with the story. Good Morning America hosted Smollett, where he maligned anyone who asked questions as a racist and a homophobe. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin stated, “This is America in 2019.” Celebrities parroted their support for Smollett, with many blaming President Trump and Vice President Pence for the attack. The story was a hoax. That same night, a Jewish man in New York was beaten by three thugs. Nothing was stolen. The attack was caught on video...This isn’t the only story of anti-Semitism in New York. Not by a long shot. Two weeks before that beating, a Jewish man, 19, was “violently assaulted” as he walked past a local laundromat by a group of teenage black males. In December, a 16-year-old Jewish teen spent a week in a hospital after being beaten by two other teens; witnesses said that the teens screamed “Kill the Jew.”
The NYPD categorized the attack as “gang related” rather than a hate crime, angering Jews in the area. This weekend, vandals shattered the window of a Chabad in Bushwick as the rabbi and his family slept inside. This list goes on. In fact, according to NBC New York, “The city has seen a sharp increase in reported hate crimes so far in 2019, the NYPD said. Police had investigated 42 hate crimes through Feb. 4, compared with 19 at the same point last year. Most of those were anti-Semitic.”
Many of these attacks have been carried out by African-American suspects, including a former Obama campaign volunteer. And yet, the lazy lefty-media take is that this is Trump's fault, even as Congressional Democrats have been forced to grapple with anti-Semitism within their own ranks (the Alt-Right and Alt-Left often unite in their vile hatred of Jews). Finally, because I invoked the Smollett case, I'll leave you with MSNBC's Morning Joe crew laughing at Kamala Harris' deer-in-the-headlights reaction when confronted with her original reaction to Smollett's false claims: