Biden's antisemitism strategy not enough to end Jew-hatred
We Jews cannot solve this gargantuan age-old problem alone. If we could, antisemitism would have been eradicated long ago. Instead, it is rearing its fury-filled, ugly head, across the United States with frequency. This battle requires the masses to stand up and work together to combat this hatred.Jonathan Tobin: Asking the wrong question about Biden’s flawed antisemitism plan
Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog tweeted his appreciation to the Biden administration: “I would like to congratulate the Biden administration for publishing the first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism. Thank you, @POTUS, for prioritizing the need to confront antisemitism in all its forms. We welcome the re-embracing of @TheIHRA definition which is the gold standard definition of antisemitism. Less than a century after the Holocaust, rising antisemitism in America and across the globe is cause for alarm. This report is an important first step in the long fight against this venomous hate.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has said: “As the US Jewish community is experiencing antisemitism at levels not seen in generations, we deeply appreciate that the White House has stepped up and delivered this significant, comprehensive strategy.
“It’s particularly notable that this approach recognizes that antisemitism is not about politics – it’s about principles. We are pleased that this strategy comprehensively addresses hate and antisemitism on campus, online and from extremists on both the far-Right and the far-Left.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, in his still powerful and insightful essay “Antisemite and Jew,” explains that the antisemite has created the Jew as a target of hate. The Jew represents everything that the antisemite loathes. That hatred is so deep and profound that even though they might love democracy, the antisemite does not even realize that their hatred is destroying the very society they love.
Sartre argues that this hatred is a passion and a deep-seated emotion. He explains that to the antisemite, the hatred is not an idea in the common sense of the word: it is not a point of view that is rational. “It is first of all a passion.”
Sartre tells the story of his high school friend who was livid that he had failed the French poetry test and the Jew, a son of Eastern European immigrants, had passed. The young man’s anger was vicious and so very visceral. He wonders how a Jew could understand French poetry better than he – a true Frenchman.
And then, the truth. Sartre gets his classmate to admit that he failed because he did not study and that it had nothing to do with the Jew. Rather than accept the blame he alone deserved, he transferred his anger and frustration to the ready scapegoat, a Jewish classmate.
Jew-hatred will not disappear, but the more non-Jews who join in the battle, the more likely it is that Jew-hatred will become socially unacceptable and even banished from polite conversation and public interaction.
That is truly the goal of this initiative.
Those who have sought to defend the strategy by accusing its critics of quibbling over details are not just demonstrating poor judgment. They are failing to ask the most important question about antisemitism in America. The real query that needs to be posed is what role is this administration—even as it engages in a massive exercise in antisemitism virtue signaling—playing in enabling the growth of a form of Jew-hatred that is considered acceptable in political discourse, academia and popular culture?Jonathan Tobin: Don’t call promoting anti-Zionism to Jewish youth ‘dialogue’
The unfortunate answer is quite a lot.
This is, after all, the same administration that has mandated the implementation of the new secular religion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in every government department and agency.
The woke DEI catechism is rooted in critical race theory, which divides all Americans into two immutable groups: victims and victimizers. It is also directly connected to intersectional myths that treat Jews and Israel as white oppressors.
Biden’s embrace of this toxic ideology and his decision to make it official government policy are among the most momentous things he has done in the White House. In comparison to that awful decision, the publication of a strategy paper on antisemitism is relatively insignificant. This was reflected in the largely negligible coverage of the document’s unveiling in the secular media.
The Biden report did say that modules about antisemitism would be included in government DEI indoctrination. But anyone who thinks that this will temper the damage being done is forgetting that the DEI commissars who are implementing this doctrine of permanent race conflict throughout academia, the business world and now the government are exactly the same people who fought for the alternative to the IHRA definition. The only way to prevent the spread of this noxious form of left-wing Jew-hatred is to stop DEI, not to make minimal attempts to alter it.
The organized Jewish world was played perfectly by the Biden White House. As a result, the bulk of American Jewry, already inclined to support anything put out by the Democrats and to believe antisemitism is primarily a problem of the right, has had its preexisting biases confirmed.
By allowing themselves to be distracted by a clever information operation and thereby gulled into avoiding a confrontation over the most important detail about the document, mainstream Jewish leadership has once again failed its constituency. An administration that is enabling antisemitism can’t be trusted to fight antisemitism no matter what its purported strategy on the issue might claim to be.
American Jews have always been addicted to interfaith dialogue. Jewish groups jump at any opportunity to engage in interfaith programs to foster alliances with other minorities. When applied to dialogue between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, dialogue programs, which are usually sponsored by groups that are critical of Israel, are generally even less productive than other kinds. All too often, they involve Arabs complaining bitterly about Israel and the Jews agreeing with them. While these engagements are well-intended and praised for their idealism, they often do more harm than good since they can serve to reinforce the unwillingness of Palestinians to give up their demented fantasies about the demolition of the Jewish state.
But now we’ve been given an example of a form of Jewish-Arab dialogue that goes well beyond that. The newest model that is being tried involves bringing American Jewish students together with people who are openly anti-Zionists, bent on Israel’s destruction to make them better informed about the Palestinian narrative.
That’s the conceit of a program launched by Ezra Beinart, a high school junior living in New York City who has been recruiting fellow teens to learn more about the Palestinian side in the conflict. And they are certainly getting that in the series of Zoom programs he’s led that have featured, among others, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a vicious opponent of the Jewish state and a supporter of the antisemitic BDS movement.
If his last name sounds familiar, it should. He’s the son of journalist Peter Beinart, whose well-chronicled personal and ideological journey began as a neo-liberal hawk, then a left-wing dove and self-proclaimed liberal Zionist to his current guise as an outspoken anti-Zionist who supports the elimination of the Jewish state, a position he advocates in publications like The New York Times and as a commentator on CNN.
I have often criticized Beinart’s work. And I debated him once in person several years ago when he was still playing the role of liberal Zionist. That was before he abandoned the cause of Jewish self-determination because, to his surprise, the people of Israel stubbornly refused to listen to his advice to make suicidal concessions to those who plot their destruction.
But while I make no secret of my disdain for his writing and statements—and am appalled at the way he uses his Jewish identity to give undeserved credibility to his attacks on Israel—I bear neither him nor his family any personal ill will. And under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t think of publicizing, let alone publicly criticizing, his son’s high school projects.
