I have written many blogs pointing out that, when it comes to hatred, no one – and I do mean no one – outdoes the left.
In this regard, Michael Freund has written an excellent commentary pointing out the extent of left wing hatred against Israel as a country and Jews in particular.
Here is a particularly salient excerpt:
The openness with which antisemitism is now expressed, and even tolerated, cannot be ignored, if only because there are daily reminders of it, whether on college campuses or during pro-Hamas protests in the streets of major cities.
And while the surge of Jew-hatred has been gaining increasing attention, there is one salient aspect of it that warrants an accounting.
Indeed, for the past few years, the Biden administration, the mainstream media, and even some Jewish organizations were peddling the assertion that the gravest danger to American Jews, and American society as a whole, came from the extreme Right.
But if recent events have taught us anything, that idea has proven to be a fallacy. While there is no doubt that American Jews must be on guard against neo-Nazis and other such purveyors of hate, the violence and vitriol of the woke and so-called progressive Left clearly pose a more potent, widespread and dangerous threat.
The crowds praising the intifada, the professors hailing the Hamas “resistance,” and the youth calling for Zionists to be killed are overwhelmingly card-carrying members of the American Left. And they far outnumber the right-wing extremists who hate Jews.
And here is another one:
When Columbia University decided last week to cancel all in-person classes on campus and move them to Zoom, or when the University of Southern California called off its graduation ceremony, it was not out of fear of skinheads or would-be Aryans.
And when people have been filmed tearing down posters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, they aren’t wearing armbands with swastikas.
The fact is that the loudest and most virulent voices of antisemitism are coming straight from the self-proclaimed progressives, who hurl the modern-day equivalent of medieval blood libels against Israel and harass and intimidate Jewish college students.
Consider for a moment the uproar that took place in August 2017, when a group of over 100 neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and various other loons marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
In recent months, we have witnessed the equivalent of dozens of Charlottesvilles, only this time the participants are from the extreme Left.
By any measure, this should serve as a wake-up call to liberal American Jews, who for far too long have cast their lot with the Democratic Party, even as it drifted into a swamp of woke extremism.
Are the points Mr. Freund is making accurate? Are they troubling? Do they show who Jews damn well better be worrying about most in our country today?
The answers? Yes, yes and yes.
I will end this blog the way I started it; by pointing out that, when it comes to hatred, no one – and I do mean no one – outdoes the left.
I know it. Maybe you do too. And it is time for a lot more people to wake up and acknowledge this in-our-face reality as well.
