Woke Anti-Semitism, Continued

You read about it here first. Or, at least, I believe so. Readers of this blog have read two posts on what I called Woke Ant-Semitism. Links here and here.

Now, Gerard Baker has written about Woke Anti-Semitism in his Wall Street Journal column this morning.

To allow him his say, about the most recent outbreak of anti-Semitism on America’s streets:

This latest outbreak, however, has come about in direct response to the recent conflict in Gaza. While politicians of all parties denounce anti-Semitic violence, the rhetoric of some leading leftist Democrats has helped nourish resentments and prejudices. It’s one thing—even if it’s wrong—to condemn the actions of the Israeli government in defending its citizens, quite another to question the character of the Jewish state itself. 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, with a strong track record of promoting anti-Semitic tropes, has talked of “war crimes” committed in Gaza. Her colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has described Israel as an “apartheid” state, a weighty accusation of violent racism with historic resonance.

Baker agrees with a point that I and others have been making. Wokesters have been reading the current Middle Eastern conflict through the lens of a leftist oppression narrative. As they always have:

The wider political and cultural environment is what makes this outbreak of anti-Semitism especially unsettling. For many progressives, this latest conflict in the Middle East fits—or rather, has been made to fit—the binary classification of the human race into oppressor and victim on the basis of identity that they now see as the defining dialectic of history everywhere.

To be sure, the explicit identification of Palestinians with disadvantaged African-Americans isn’t completely novel. As American racial tensions of the 1960s coincided with earlier episodes of Israeli-Arab conflict, organizations such as Mr. Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam sought to make the connection. But the wide penetration of this notion into the consciousness and discourse of prominent elected figures in the Democratic Party is new.

Indeed it is new. Though, Louis Farrahkan is good friends and a close associate of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And America voted to put Wright’s protege in the White House. As for Rev. Al Sharpton, he was a frequent visitor to the Obama White House. No one complained or protested the fact that the Obama administration was consorting with a bigoted anti-Semite:

It takes extraordinary intellectual flexibility to represent the Jewish people, especially those in Israel, as part of some grand global historical pattern of white-supremacist aggression, but these ascendant protagonists of modern progressivism are used to such gymnastics. As long as the narrative can be sculpted to fit the larger objective, it will do.

All this contributes to an uneasy sense of a widening clash of civilizations that is increasingly the objective and likely outcome of the modern left’s program. The embrace of critical race theory and woke ideology in the cultural and political establishment, like its more traditional Marxist forebears, neatly reduces all tensions in human relations to a simplifying narrative of oppressor and victim, only this time not on the basis of economics but race.

We can only hope that the cease-fire in Gaza will lead to an ebbing in anti-Semitic violence in the U.S. The Jewish people know all too well that the hatred may wane but it never disappears. History tells us it is at its most virulent when it can be hitched to a larger ideological message of victimhood, resentment and retribution.

And then we have this story from The Guardian. It refers to an open letter, sent by 500 Democratic staff members, calling for the United States to take a strong stand against Israel. As noted in this blog, one reason that Hamas chose this moment to rain thousands of rockets on Israel is that they knew they had friends in the new administration.

The Guardian reports:

More than 500 Democratic party staffers and alumni of Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign have signed an open letter calling for the US president to do more to protect Palestinians and hold Israel accountable for its actions in and over Gaza, where a ceasefire currently holds.

The signatories write that they “commend [Biden’s] efforts to broker a ceasefire. Yet, we also cannot unsee the horrific violence that unfolded in recent weeks in Israel/Palestine, and we implore you to continue using the power of your office to hold Israel accountable for its actions and lay the groundwork for justice and lasting peace.”

The letter adds: “The very same values that motivated us to work countless hours to elect you demand that we speak out … we remain horrified by the images of Palestinian civilians in Gaza killed or made homeless by Israeli airstrikes.”

Now, you are up to date.