Drawing some conclusions about antisemitic incitement

No one can be surprised by the surge in antisemitic violence currently sweeping across the United States. Still, it’s time to draw some conclusions about those who have actively contributed to the atmosphere of incitement against Jews, as well as those who have enabled or remained neutral about it. 

The question is: Will those in leadership positions in government, civil society, Jewish communities and their organizations begin connecting the dots to the growing toll of incidents and the way that Jew-hatred has been normalized in public discourse? 

Since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the demonization of the Jewish state and its supporters has become commonplace. Yet the problem has long since ceased to be one in which Jews are merely dealing with hostile environments. Large numbers of people have routinely expressed support for violence that happens elsewhere, including Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who did with respect to the atrocities of Oct. 7.

Or think of the mobs of university students and faculty who chanted for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews (“Globalize the intifada”). The notion that these were simple slogans and not calls for violence against Jews in the United States wasn’t just naive. It was the product of a mindset that refused to understand that when you foment and legitimize hate against a particular population, that population will have a target on its back. 

A growing toll of
violence

The attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., in the center of the state’s Jewish community, by a Lebanese immigrant-turned-U.S. citizen who drove his truck into the building and opened fire on security guards before being killed, was just the latest situation where Jewish institutions or individuals have been targeted. It comes after a laundry list of other incidents, some of which were highly publicized and many that were not. But they all follow a similar pattern in which perpetrators with grudges against Jews or Israel or who claim to support “Palestine” have made the leap from rhetoric to attempts to shed Jewish blood. 

Whether it was the firebombing of a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo., in which an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor was murdered or the cold-blood slaughter of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, D.C., or less “serious” crimes like the assault this past week on two Israeli-American men in a San Jose restaurant because they were heard speaking Hebrew, the list of attacks in which Jews have been singled out for violence continues to grow. That doesn’t even take into account violence that is happening abroad, such as the murder in December of 15 people at a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach in Australia. And it must be placed in the same context as the many incidents in which those who claim to be acting on behalf of ISIS, or other Muslim terrorist and hate groups, like this week’s fatal shooting at Old Dominion University in Virginia, or the attempted bombing of an anti-Mamdani demonstration in New York City. 

While it is axiomatic that the only ones guilty of such crimes are the assailants, it is long past the point of doubt that they are either inspired by or made more likely to act by those who engage in public rhetorical Jew-baiting. They are further enabled by reflexive accusations of “Islamophobia” against anyone who calls attention to Muslim antisemitism and/or violence against Jews and others committed by those who claim to act on behalf of that community. 

A drumbeat of incitement

While such attacks are invariably condemned across the board, the drumbeat of incitement from public figures linked to hatred for Israel, Zionism and Jewish rights steadily rises. The blood libels about Israelis committing “genocide” in Gaza and accusing American Jews of enabling this fiction, coupled with the more recent accusation that Israel has dragged America into a war on Iran against U.S. interests, have exponentially increased over the past 30 months. 

Mainstream media regularly platforms biased news coverage of the Middle East that often echoes the lies emanating from the Hamas terrorist groups and their Iranian paymasters. These are often repeated by politicians on the far left, such as Mamdani, or members of Congress like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Von Hollen (D-Md.), and Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich). Those doing this often claim to oppose antisemitism. They nevertheless repeatedly elevate age-old tropes about dual loyalty and Jews buying influence, which are inextricably tied to such hatred. These same media sources and politicians downplay or deny the hatred of Jews that flows from the Arab and Muslim community, as well as Islamist nations like Qatar that spend billions promoting that agenda in academia, government and throughout American society. 

Meanwhile, far-right podcasters like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and neo-Nazi groyper Nick Fuentes spin conspiracy theories about Jewish plots and alleged crimes to vast audiences of often ignorant viewers and listeners who seek a scapegoat that can explain everything that is wrong with the world and their own lives. 

None of this is new. But what is disturbing about it is that too many otherwise decent people tolerate this sort of discourse or simply shrug their shoulders in its wake. 

Conservative podcasters like Megyn Kelly still claim to be middle of the road. But by refusing to take sides against the likes of Carlson and Owens, and leaning into the canard that Israelis and Jews are trying to silence dissent or are responsible for Americans being killed by Iran, they are as much part of the problem as more extreme voices. 

It also applies to those like Vice President JD Vance, whose public stance of neutrality about his friend Carlson’s hate sent a disturbing message to the faction of the Republican Party that looks to him for leadership. 

What must be done in response to the surge of antisemitism and attendant violence? 

First, Americans of all religions, races and political beliefs must unite not merely to condemn individuals who commit these crimes but also to recognize that the enabling of the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism on both the left and right must stop at once. 

Those who spread blood libels against Jews, whether in the media or in politics, must be ostracized from decent society, as they might have been in a different time before memories of the Holocaust faded and such ethnic hatred slipped back into mainstream discourse. 

In a country like the United States, with First Amendment protection for speech, even Nazis have the right to say or publish what they like. So what is needed now is a concerted effort by responsible persons to push the Jewish conspiracy-mongers and haters back into the fever swamps of the far right and far left, and out of mainstream society. 

Doing so requires a sea change on the left, in which those who peddle toxic neo-Marxist theories about race that label Jews and Israelis as “white” oppressors are no longer considered part of the prevailing orthodoxy among political liberals, academics and those who dominate popular culture. 

Media coverage of antisemitic violence should cease valorizing or treating Islamist hate as an understandable reaction to events. As the Honest Reporting group noted in a social-media post this week, when The New York Times reacts to the Michigan attack with an article focusing on the Zionist origins of the synagogue that was assaulted—thus implying that it was a legitimate target of protest if not violence—or in humanizing a would-be ISIS murderer, they are reporting about crimes against Jews or targets of Islamist hate in a way they would never do were the targets other minorities like African-Americans or Hispanics. 

‘Gatekeeping’ against
hate

While no one should be subjected to prejudice or discrimination because of their ethnicity or faith, honesty is needed about the source of much of this violence within Muslim and Arab communities. The fear of accusations of “Islamophobia,” which are mainly employed to silence those who condemn antisemitism, must be overcome and replaced by courageous truth-telling by Muslims and non-Muslims. 

It will also require those on the right to forget their phobias about “gatekeeping” that were the product of the moral panic about race that spread across the country during the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020 and led to the shutting down of conservative dissent. Anyone who spreads smears against Jews must be contained, and, yes, “canceled” from platforms where decent persons appear. Those who tolerate such hate in the name of free speech must recognize that the lies they enable are not cost-free efforts to gain Internet clicks and views, but paths to bloodshed. It isn’t too much to ask that antisemitism should not be treated as just another opinion about which people should be expected to agree to disagree. 

Trump took an important step in the right direction with his recent disavowal and condemnation of Carlson. But it can’t end there. The former Fox News host and his maniacal accusations about Jews, Israel and even the Chabad movement have helped put a target on the back of every Jew in the United States, as well as evangelical Christians who support Israel. He should be persona non grata in the White House, at Republican events and as part of activist groups like Turning Point USA, where he has been welcomed in the past. 

And as important as efforts to turn back the tide of hate in society as a whole may be, it is just as, if not more vital, that the Jewish communal leadership stops acting as if they can deal with this crisis without changing the way they think and act. 

Assertive self-defense
needed

There must be an end to a general spirit in which the Jewish community believes it can cope with attacks by merely hardening Jewish targets (as important as that is) or by reflexive calls for Jews to “shelter in place.” Those who are responsible for the safety of children, students, families and seniors, or who lead groups tasked with defense of the community, need to model a different kind of behavior than the business-as-usual strategies they have employed for generations. That approach, which relied on the help of erstwhile allies in minority communities or traditional liberal constituencies, has clearly failed. Jews should respond to hate speech that enables violence by reclaiming the streets, the campuses and public platforms with assertiveness, pride and a willingness to go on offense against those who spread antisemitism. 

And, as much as this goes against the grain for most American Jews, a national campaign promoting self-defense, including the large-scale exercise of Second Amendment rights that will make Jewish venues less inviting targets for terrorists, should be on our national agenda. 

Jewish Democrats and Republicans also need to set aside the partisanship that is so pervasive throughout all of American society by making it clear to their respective political allies that the safety of Jews, in America as well as Israel, which remains under assault by Iran and its allies, is a higher priority than partisan loyalties. 

If those who claim to speak for Jews don’t wake up and act on these priorities, they and their often outdated and obsolescent organizations should be scrapped and replaced by those who are not encumbered by the groupthink of the past. 

We must not treat this last week of violence as if it is just one more trial to be endured, and instead draw the necessary conclusions about it and change our stance from one of ineffectual complaints to action.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

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