Wednesday, September 30, 2020
From Ian:
Antisemitism’s ‘Long March Through the Institutions’
Jonathan Tobin: The Left wants no part of liberal Israel
Antisemitism’s ‘Long March Through the Institutions’
This antisemitism was once, perhaps, an annoyance that could be swept under the rug with claims of academic freedom and diversity. It can’t be anymore. It has become pervasive, institutionalized, and systemic. And it is enforced by brutal means — both physical and psychological. The violence is bold and public, as it is intended to be, and could not possibly be sustained without the open collaboration of students, faculty, and administration. It has become something like a pogrom in slow motion — an intellectual pogrom, perhaps, but a pogrom nonetheless.
Jews have reacted to this in ways that are hardly unprecedented: surrender, apathy or defiance. In other words, they internalize the institutional antisemitism and become activists on its behalf, as have groups like Jewish Voice for Peace. Or they keep their heads down and try to go on with their lives. Or they become activists on behalf of the Jewish people and Zionism, despite the high cost of doing so.
I do not want to demean any one of these groups. We should admire, encourage and support the defiant ones, and reach out to the apathetic ones, but we should not demonize those who surrender. Most of them are young, impressionable, unsure of themselves and their identity, and most importantly vastly outnumbered by forces far more powerful than they are. And those forces are happy to engage in the most debased and sadistic exploitation of that power.
In many ways, the fault is our own. For decades, the Jewish community and Jewish leadership allowed the poison to fester, accepted the excuses of academic freedom and diversity, and left Jewish students to their own devices, which were very few. Until recently, when several organizations have thankfully emerged to address the problem, little attention was being paid to the horrors committed by the “Long Marchers” or the suffering of their Jewish victims. It was we who abandoned those Jews, and it is we who must make amends for it. They were left to face the beast alone, and they can hardly be blamed for sometimes choosing to feed it rather than fight it.
Ironically, however, because of the very emotional and physical violence the “Long Marchers” have used, the mere fact that some Jews have surrendered to antisemitism and anti-Zionism says absolutely nothing about the Jews or Zionism. This is because we do not and cannot know what these Jews really think, or what they would think if they were not subjected to the Long Marchers’ oppression and violence. What a person says under torture cannot be trusted, and what a person thinks while being abused is equally malleable. Should we succeed in rolling back the “Long March” and providing young Jews the freedom to make up their own minds without psychological coercion or physical violence, we would likely be pleasantly surprised. The truth is, we shouldn’t be worrying about the alienation of young Jews. We should be worrying about how to help them fight for that freedom they so desperately need.
AOC initially accepted the group’s invitation to help honor Rabin. However, once that became known, she received an avalanche of criticism from her allies on the intersectional left and immediately backed down. She later claimed that her hosts had misrepresented the nature of the event and withdrew from it.Indy piece on AOC backing out of Rabin event doesn't even feign fairness
To the party’s activist base, anything associated with Israel—even a program dedicated to the memory of a man who was assassinated by a right-wing extremist because of his efforts to make peace—is beyond the pale.
BDS supporters smear Rabin, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, as a war criminal because of his service during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and as Minister of Defense during the First Intifada, when he is supposed to have urged the troops under his command to “break the bones” of those Palestinians committing violence.
Arguments about Rabin’s record are beside the point. Those who, like “The Squad” and their fellow travelers on the left, believe in intersectional canards about the Palestinian war on the Jewish state being morally equivalent to the struggle for civil rights in the United States see all Israelis as alike. If they think the one Jewish state on the planet has a right to exist or defend itself, in the eyes of the BDS movement, they are evil oppressors exercising “white privilege” over “indigenous people,” even if they are persons of color who are indigenous to the land of Israel.
AOC is someone who, as we have repeatedly seen these last two years, doesn’t blink an eye about defying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. That she thought it necessary to acquiesce to the demands of a Twitter mob—led in this instance by an anti-Zionist writer for the far-left Jewish Currents publication—speaks volumes not only about her ideology, but about the disciplined nature of the intersectional left when it comes to policing its adherents with respect to Israel. Her overt snub of liberal Jews sends a loud message that there is no place for them in the party base if they are not willing to renounce support for Israel’s right to exist.
This is yet another wake-up call for Jewish Democrats who may think Biden’s defeat of AOC ally Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ensured that their party is going to remain solidly in the pro-Israel camp. AOC and her allies can no longer be dismissed as noisy non-entities. Unless and until they are explicitly repudiated by Biden, rather than appeased and coddled, they can be forgiven for thinking the future of the Democratic Party belongs to them.
The Independent recently reported on the decision by US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) to back out of an Americans for Peace Now event commemorating Yitzhak Rabin following criticism by anti-Israel activists. The article (“AOC pulls out of memorial event for ex-Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin”, Sept. 27), by Matt Mathers, was notable in that, whilst quoting propagandists like Ali Abunimah agreeing with AOC’s decision, it failed to devote any space to the many voices critical of the New York congresswoman.Ilhan Omar Alleged Voter Fraud Funded by Anti-Israel Arab Businessman
The article noted that AOC’s about-face seemed influenced by a tweet by pro-Palestinian voices, such as a contributor to the anti-Zionist Jewish Currents Magazine, who said that, for Palestinians, Rabin is “remembered [for] his brutal rule suppressing Palestinian protest during the First Intifada, [and] someone who reportedly ordered the breaking of Palestinian bones”.
The Indy failed to note, however, the prominent left-wing pro-peace voices who were highly critical of AOC, including officials from Peace Now Israel, the head of J Street, and Rabin’s granddaughter Noa Rothman.
Indeed, the demonisation of Rabin is especially inexplicable to the Israeli left given that the prime minister was murdered by a far-right extremist opposed to his peace efforts, and in fact is one of the few Israeli political figures lionized by those generally critical of the state. Those vilifying Rabin are in effect saying that all Israeli leaders are beyond the moral pale – suggesting that their problem isn’t with any particular Israeli policy or government, but with the country’s very essence.
We have been on top of exposing the evils of Ilhan Omar even before she was elected to Congress. It was actually Laura Loomer, the most banned woman on social media turned Congressional candidate, who was on top of exposing Ilhan Omar, and we helped promote Laura's videos exposing her.
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