The BBC prints a scathing letter from “Jewish leaders.”
When Jews complain about an obviously anti-Semitic mural in Tower Hamlets, [Labor leader Jeremy] Corbyn of course supports the artist. Hizbollah commits terrorist atrocities against Jews, but Corbyn calls them his friends and attends pro-Hizbollah rallies in London. Exactly the same goes for Hamas. Raed Salah says Jews kill Christian children to drink their blood. Corbyn opposes his extradition and invites him for tea at the House of Commons. These are not the only cases. He is repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly anti-Semitic views, but claims never to hear or read them.
More discussion by Dalibar Rohac.
Could something like this happen in the U.S.? Today, the vast majority of Jews in this country are more closely affiliated with the left than they are with Judaism.
Well, first of all, it may not be happening in the UK. It could be that these “Jewish leaders” are unusually conservative politically. I am not familiar with the scene there.
Many of my Jewish friends proudly took part in the march for gun control last weekend, expressing their solidarity with the left. But some of them also noted the DC Council Member who said that the Rothchilds control the weather. As of now, they see Democratic anti-semitism as a fringe phenomenon and right-wing anti-Semitism as a serious threat. We’ll see what happens as that view continues to collide with reality.
I have a hard time separating right and left.
My axis is big government vs the libertarians, secessionists and defaulters.
Observations from an outsider:
It seems to me that there’s a divide in the Jewish culture, those who are culturally Jewish but not religiously so, and those who are both. It also appears to me that those who are the former also identify as liberals who are willing to excuse, or at least turn a blind eye, to the growing antisemitism on the left. Those in the latter group are not.
Broad statements to be sure, and probably full of exceptions. But to me, there seems to be a trend there.
The logic of progressive principles and strategy is 1. To oppose Israel, and 2. To include Muslims in their coalition and import as many as possible to manipulate the electorate. But many Jews support Israel, and many Muslims hate Jews, enough to be the overwhelmingly predominant source of anti-Jewish hate crime violence, especially in Europe.
But progressivism is high status, so many Jews want to be seen as good progressives, and meanwhile, many progressive elites are influential, gifted, and wealthy Jews that are valuable to keep around and not dispose of or alienate (unlike other previous members of the progressive coalition, who were purged the moment they became demographically or financially unnecessary).
So for a time people will deal with these contradictions by means of cognitive dissonance and unprincipled exceptions. But that can’t and won’t last, and so inevitably the Jews will split, some (probably most non-Orthodox) essentially converting fully to progressivism, anti-Semitic tendencies deriving from political expediency and all, and the others exiled to “social Siberia” with the other low status culture war losers.
Some early signs of this can already be seen in the contemptible way mainstream media outlets with plenty of progressive Jews on staff cover recent incidents of Muslim hate crime violence against Jews, which is to go as far as possible to conceal the true identity and motivation of the perpetrator in the hopes it will mislead careless readers into buying the false narrative that the anti-Semitic threat is pogroms from nationalist natives and neo-Nazis instead of the actual source which is Muslim immigration.
I don’t think it’s just high status. I suspect many Jews deeply identify with the progressive political tribe and even hate the opposing political right-wing tribe, and they’ve deeply bought into left-wing identity politics, where they are key part of a non-white racial coalition fighting against white oppression. Also, there are many Jews, like Dennis Prager, who find this absurd.
Jews vote overwhelmingly Tory if this article is to be trusted.
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Poll-Only-13-percent-of-British-Jews-intend-to-vote-Labor-494366
Yes, these days only American Jews are overwhelmingly on the left. Elsewhere that’s not the case.
Dennis Prager wrote about this same absurdity here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/why-christians-support-israel/
Many Jews dismiss authenticity of Jewish support from whites, Christians, and the political right, and ignore very overt anti-semitism from the political left. It’s not just Trump, I remember Ted Cruz was very genuinely pro-Jewish and that love was not reciprocated.
Many Western Jews are more wired into the tribal mindset of being part of the left-wing political tribe and hating the right-wing political tribe, and they care much less about their racial/religious tribe, and even overlook overt hostility to the Jewish tribe.
I’m glad this is getting more recognition and discussion.
Most Jewish people are very able and accomplished.
Socialist parties of the left and right have “progressive” policies that tax accomplished people more severely.
It depends on how big the Islamic faction on the left gets, I think. In the US, I suspect the answer is not all that big, at least in relative sizes, and so the answer to your question is/will be no. In Europe, things will probably be different, and so we might have a somewhat unusual historical flip flop where American Jews are to the left of their European counterparts.
Could something like this happen in the U.S.?
Haven’t Jewish people been voting for Republicans more the last several decades in the US? Additionally, Israel leaders have been against the US left, especially Obama, a lot and it is likely that will increase the next several cycles. Many on the left don’t feel a special relationship with Israel anymore. At this point, I assume Israel statements of ‘supporting two states’ are meaningless and in the long run Israel & Palestine are already one nation that has future Civil Rights movement in their future.
This isn’t even remotely true.
Jewish Americans are Democrat leaning, IIRC about 7 to 1.
Also, if Israel and Palestine are one nation, it only ends one way. And that’s genocide against Jewish people. The only way they have stopped wonton murder is with a fence/wall.
So you’re advocating for mass murder and genocide, probably unintentionally. The only way Jewish people will be safe is with their own nation. We’ve run this experiment before, and it ends with pogroms, massacres, and the holocaust.
Also, if Israel and Palestine are one nation, it only ends one way. And that’s genocide against Jewish people. The only way they have stopped wonton murder is with a fence/wall.
???? Israel is building all kinds of settlements in former Palestine and I don’t see a way out for two states. Israel wants the land and soon the cheap labor while Palestine will not be able to function as a separate state. (Israel has occupied Palestine so long that the most people blame Israel if it rains too hard.) So they are combined forever.
Personally, I think if Isreal made real efforts to build an economy in which the Palestine people could equally economically benefit, I bet in a couple of generation there will be like the US race relations today. (For all the complaints about race relations in the US forgets how bad history of this was.)
Perhaps Republicans should consider an anti-privilege initiative, specifically combatting affirmative action (a nice term for institutional privilege for disadvantaged groups). The initiative would specifically prohibit discrimination against individuals biased in any part by being male, heterosexual, white, Asian or Jewish.
This would force open the issue on radical discrimination in hiring and college admissions against the above, and specifically create a group of shared interests including the high success minority groups of Asians and Jews. It would broaden the tent while claiming the moral high ground around equality of treatment (rule egalitarianism).
I am not a Republican or conservative or potential gainer from the above (all the young people in my family are black and Hispanic)…. just throwing this out there.
The Civil Rights Act of 1064 already prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, race, creed, or color. It is one reason colleges will not release SAT scores by race of their admitted students.
Sure. Jews can leave the left and join the right by helping out with those torch carrying rallies reenacting the good old days back in Germany.
Steve
I would bet that DC Council member probably took “Rothschild” to refer to rich people, not to Jews, and probably did not know that Rothschild is Jewish. Whenever I see a story about anti-Semitism, I ask, does this person even know who’s Jewish? 97% of Americans have no idea what names are Jewish. My mother didn’t know that Jerry Seinfeld is Jewish. So for instance there was a big joke about “Bernie Bernstein” calling voters in Alabama asking about Roy Moore. But how many people in Alabama know that Bernie Bernstein is Jewish? How many Roy Moore voters have any acquaintances who are Jewish? It’s easy to overestimate anti-Semitism but genuine anti-Semitism is very rare in the US for the simple reason that probably less than 1% of Americans have a good grasp of who’s Jewish (other than Jews, of course).
Plenty of people are anti-Muslim without knowing who exactly are Muslim but have certain ideas about them.
There are plenty of names like Madoff or Koch brothers that can be a stand in for evil rich manipulating the economy and government, and polluting the environment, but controlling the weather implies supernatural deals with the devil.
Try saying Rockefeller, Elon Musk, or Trump control the climate to make real estate deals. It only “makes sense” for Rothchilds.
Zionists.
They don’t care about shit.
The Mercer family sticks out. Then they wonder why we hate them. They sell us out, hide behind GOP skirts, and still expect us to kiss their asses.
Did the Mercer’s sell out? They bought in. They are driving much of the Trump and Breitbart agenda? I’m sure Trump haters hate the Mercers, but I imagine most Trump fans and Breitbart fans like them. The Mercers chose a behind the scenes role. I love the Mercer’s advocacy efforts.
My thoughts:
1) Jews have many individual interests, but they share a collective interest in opposing antisemitism.
2) Antisemitism occurs in nativist forms associated with the right and in Muslim forms associated with the left.
3) In circumstances where Islam seems increasingly relevant, Jews will tend to flock rightward. E.g., during the early stages of the War on Terror, the Republican Bush administration included Jews such as Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle.
4) Extensive Muslim immigration to Europe is pushing European Jews much farther to the right than American Jews.