As I See It: The unique disorder of hatred now destroying the Left
No apology can ever expunge the evil of antisemitism.
By MELANIE PHILLIPSDemonstrators take part in protests outside a meeting of the National Executive of Britain's Labour Party which discussed the party's definition of antisemitism, in London, Britain, September 4, 2018(photo credit: REUTERS)
In a notable display of synchronized moral meltdown, both America’s Democrats and Britain’s Labour Party have been struggling to manage their shocking eruptions of antisemitism.Both will fail.In America, there has been outrage over remarks by Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who recycled the trope of manipulative and moneyed Jewish influence when she suggested that American Jews were buying support for Israel in Congress.Although her fellow Democrats denounced her, their reaction has been wholly inadequate. A statement signed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats called on Omar to apologize for her “hurtful” comments.“Antisemitism must be called out, confronted and condemned whenever it is encountered, without exception,” Pelosi said. “Omar and I agreed that we must use this moment to move forward as we reject antisemitism in all forms.”No apology can ever expunge the evil of antisemitism. For this doesn’t merely cause hurt or offense: it directly adds to the demonic discourse that continues to make Jews both within and outside of Israel the target of murderous hatred. Requiring an apology is to help the antisemite get herself off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist.If that. In Tablet magazine, Yair Rosenberg said Omar deserved “dialogue not denunciation.” He hailed Omar’s “genuine self-awareness” when she reflected upon being accused of antisemitism in 2012 after tweeting: “Israel has hypnotized the world; may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”But this “self-awareness” merely consisted of saying she could identify with her Jewish critics because experiencing antisemitism was like experiencing “white privilege.” Well no, it’s not; there’s no comparison.She made no acknowledgment that she had perpetrated malicious incitement against the Jews. Indeed, straight after the “unequivocal” apology for her latest barb about sinister Jewish influence, she doubled down on her bigotry by “reaffirming” the “problematic role” of AIPAC as a political lobby.This is an individual who clearly believes that Jews are a manipulative force controlling the world. And yet certain liberal Jews want to “move forward” now that she has “apologized” – and even to open up a dialogue with her.
The proper way to “move forward” with antisemites is to remove them from public life. Yet Omar will remain on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who used the “dual loyalty” smear against supporters of Israel, will similarly remain on the House Financial Services Committee. Both women support the BDS movement, whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel.Is this what Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues meant by calling out, confronting and condemning antisemitism “without exception?”IN BRITAIN, there has been renewed outrage over the Labour Party’s continued failure to deal with the multitudinous antisemites in its ranks.Earlier this week, after repeatedly stalling on providing information to party members about the scale of the problem and the measures being taken to deal with it, the Labour leadership lamely revealed it had received 673 allegations of anti-Jewish hate by party members during the past 10 months – leading to only 12 individuals being expelled, with a further 44 departing voluntarily.A number of Labour MPs angrily criticized these figures as “incomplete” and accused the party of “institutional antisemitism.”A group called Labour Against Antisemitism has collected thousands of screenshots of anti-Jewish comments and images from Labour Facebook groups and Twitter accounts. These included claims that the accusations of antisemitism were fabricated and that Israel was behind a “smear” campaign against the party’s far-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn.So get this: the claim that Labour members are promoting Jewish conspiracy theory is a lie – promoted by a Jewish conspiracy. Self-awareness, anyone?Both the Democrats and Labour will fail to deal with this antisemitism because, although the vast majority of their members may abhor it, the roots of it go wider and deeper.There’s a widespread failure to understand that antisemitism is not just one of many types of bigotry. It is unique in its obsessional and malicious libels, double standards and murderous incitement against a people it depicts as a cosmic evil of almost supernatural proportions.There’s a further failure to understand that anti-Israelism is the new antisemitism, since it exhibits precisely the same characteristics.Antisemitism is also umbilically connected to support for Palestinianism and the corresponding belief that Israel is a colonial aggressor – the cause of causes in the progressive world.So-called Palestinian identity is a fiction invented solely to exterminate the unique historically and legally valid Jewish claim to the Land of Israel. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has a doctorate in Holocaust denial, explicitly venerates the wartime Palestinian Nazi-ally Haj Amin al Husseini and uses his media outlets to transmit Nazi-style demonization of the Jews.So why should Labour Party members who support the Palestinian agenda of Holocaust denial, attacks on Judaism and unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish power now be so shocked that Labour Party members are coming out themselves with Holocaust denial, attacks on Judaism and unhinged conspiracy theories about Jewish power?The new antisemitism comes disproportionately from Muslims and black people whom the Left resolutely refuses to criticize. Hence the astonishing free pass the Democrats give to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who describes the Jews as “satanic.”Lastly, leftists implacably believe that they are incapable of evil attitudes and that antisemitism exists only on the Right. This is factually and morally illiterate. Marx himself, a Jew by origin, was a profound Jew-hater.TODAY, ANTISEMITISM forms an axis of evil between the Left, the far Right and the Islamic world. Both Ilhan Omar and Jeremy Corbyn have been supported over their stance on Israel and the Jews by none other than former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.The Left can’t deal with antisemitism because it can’t deal with any of this. It fears that to acknowledge it would destroy its claim to be morally pure. But denying it threatens Labour’s destruction.Although American support for Israel – centered on evangelical Christians – remains strong, the Democratic Party, like Labour in Britain, will also be destroyed by antisemitism as a moral force.The resurgence of these antisemitic tropes suggests a terrifying mass loss of reason.In Britain, Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger has been subjected to sustained antisemitic abuse and an attempt to deselect her as an MP because of her prominent role in calling out Jew-hatred in her party.Her constituency chairman, Dr. Alex Scott-Samuel, a member of the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice For Labour, has made repeated appearances on a current affairs show broadcast by David Icke, the notorious conspiracy theorist and antisemite.Icke has spoken of “the global conspiracy ‘Rothschild-Zionism,’ a secret society putting its agents in places of power,” says Jews are lizards and has claimed that he isn’t an antisemite because “the Jews are really reptiles.”Once again, we ask ourselves the unanswerable question: what on Earth causes this “longest hatred?”Many reasons can be adduced. Marxists have a warped view of power, which they associate with capitalism, which they associate with the Jews.The Islamic world is driven by theologically-based paranoid hatred of Judaism.When societies and individuals find their identity fragmenting, they turn on the Jewish people as the scapegoat onto which they project their own murderous feelings.All these reasons and more have much validity. But ultimately, antisemitism is inexplicable because it is quite deranged. And that’s the most frightening thing of all.The writer is a columnist for The Times (UK).
