How the Politics of Resentment Feeds Anti-Semitism
“As you watch it, you’ll find yourself in a state of disbelief. This happened in America? In New York? .You… might also ask yourself a different question. Why haven’t I heard more about this?” - David French
Some more…
We just can’t look away any longer. We must understand that anti-Semitism is one of the world’s most ancient and persistent hatreds. We must understand that it exists on the extreme right and the extreme left. But we must go deeper. We should also understand that when the politics of the age becomes a politics of resentment, especially a conspiratorial politics of resentment—the story of what “they” did to “us”—then history teaches us that radicals disproportionately identify “they” as Jews.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
1. In my entire life I have never heard a slander about “Jews.” Not in person.I’ve of course read articles about anti-Semitism.
2. As the article implies, most of the recent attacks against Jews have been by black men. Who is stirring resentment in them about Jews? Article never tells us. I think I know the answer… but French won’t admit it.
3. In 30+ years of conservative, Republican, “right wing” political activity and observation, I have never heard so much as a hint of anti-Semitism.
4.In 30+ years of conservative, Republican, “right wing” political activity and observation I hae never seen, heard of, or interacted with the so-called “alt-right.”
5. So why do people like French imply the political right is connected with the “alt-right”. I honestly don’t even know what the “alt-right” is.
6. And of course, French has to connect “alt-right” with President Trump, even though there is no connection.
You’ll see plenty of anti-semitism among the alt-right—I’ve visited some of their websites occasionally out of morbid curiousity, and it’s out there. You’ll also occasionally see it among people closer to the center politically—generally older people mouthing the biases they learned as kids.
That noted, what I see more is anti-semitism on the far left (e.g. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, etc..), and that includes some African-American groups. Interestingly, though I know these groups existed in force at the time. I did not see this when I spent Saturday mornings at a mixed black/hispanic church in Compton, CA in summer 1994 and 1995. Perhaps the mix of peoples there—black, hispanic, asian, white—put the kibosh on at least open expressions of bias.
Part of what’s going on, in my view, is that warfare is no longer the major province of superpowers, but you get other conflicts going on that Americans take sides on. For example, a favorite restaurant of my dad’s closed in the mid 1990s because ethnic Serbs and Slovenes stopped coming because it was owned by ethnic Croatians. Prior to that, those with roots in the former Yugoslavia were fairly united in their disdain for the Soviets and (secondarily) Communism. So the end of the Cold War probably has allowed ancient ethnic and religious hatreds to re-ignite.
Put differently, one benefit (?) to the concept of thermo-nuclear annihilation is that you start to downplay your lesser biases so you can address energy towards the thing that could kill all of us. Sideline that as a threat, and the sin nature picks up the old clubs and starts swinging them.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
…. the demon of hate, never exorcised, floats freely around. Our sin was to have whitewashed the Crown Heights pogrom of 1991 and lavished its instigator Al Sharpton with respectability.
After a car crash involving a Hasidic driver resulted in the death of Gavin Cato, the 7-year-old son of Guyanese immigrants, Mr. Sharpton led a three-day riot in Crown Heights. He blamed the accident on “diamond merchants,” and his followers chanted, “Kill the Jew.” They did. The Jew they killed was Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, a doctoral candidate from Australia. Nearly 200 more were injured in the melee.
The political and media elites forgave Mr. Sharpton. Democrats called no harm, no foul. The ultra-Orthodox vote Republican anyway. Mr. Sharpton rose to the Democratic debate stage in 2004 and now hosts a show on MSNBC. This year’s Democratic candidates for president have kissed his ring.
And so the ultra-Orthodox Jews find themselves sitting ducks again in a New York hostile or indifferent to their fate. Their values have never been so out of step with the city where they live. They have many children in a time when most Americans have few. Global warming doesn’t rate on their lists of top concerns. They lead traditional lives, directed toward God, and maintain traditional families. They don’t know the meaning of “genderqueer.”
They are, in other words, of increasingly little use to the Democrats in charge of the city, who now withhold law-enforcement protection. Perpetrators of anti-Semitic assaults have been quickly released on bail, or not arrested, or have had their verbal assaults deemed “not a hate crime.”
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