America, Turn Off the Anarchy Highway  

The statistics are absolutely frightening, shameful and demonstrate grossly unacceptable behavior that, if not contained, will ultimately make it impossible for any minority to live peacefully in the US, riots will result and anarchy will reign.

According to newly published FBI data, this year Jews in the United States were approximately 525% more likely to be victims of a hate crime than would be expected based on their share of the population, despite a sharp nationwide decline in overall hate crime.

From January through early July, the FBI recorded 4,384 criminal offenses across 3,750 hate crime incidents. Authorities documented 566 anti-Jewish incidents involving 613 criminal offenses, meaning Jews (who make up just 2.4% of the population) were the targets in 15% of all reported hate crime incidents nationwide.

Jews were the most frequently targeted religious group by a wide margin. By comparison, Sikhs and Muslims each accounted for about 2% of religion-based incidents, while Arabs represented 1%.

Couple those numbers with recent primary election results not only on the east coast but in Colorado and other locations as well and there is plenty to be concerned about.

For example, the election of members of the Democratic Socialist Party who openly call not only for the destruction of Israel but also often for the downfall of western civilization as well, bodes ill for the safety of Jews in the US. The Demo­cratic Party is increas­ingly being shaped by a move­ment that does not merely oppose a policy or a prime min­is­ter. It treats the Jew­ish state itself as a ral stain.

It treats Zion­ism, the belief that Jews, like every other people, have a right to national self-determ­in­a­tion, as pre­sumptively racist. It treats Jews who refuse to dis­own Israel as polit­ical obstacles to be over­come.

That move­ment is no longer whis­per­ing from the mar­gins. It is win­ning primar­ies, set­ting act­iv­ist pri­or­it­ies and for­cing con­gres­sional Demo­crats into private meet­ings where law­makers openly acknow­ledge the pres­sure to sup­port meas­ures they believe are reck­less.

Simultaneously, the Federal government itself is on a campaign to minimize the history of hate crimes against minorities, particularly as it concerns America’s history of slavery followed by segregation.

Case in point: A federal appeals court last Thursday ruled that the Trump administration could continue removing signs and exhibits about slavery, climate change and other presumably fraught topics, at national parks across the country, at least for now.

The decision reversed a lower court ruling that blocked the National Park Service from carrying out the President’s directive to remove all “negative” displays in national parks and historical sites. It was a temporary victory for Mr. Trump, who has sought to purge national parks, Smithsonian museums and other federal sites of what he has called “woke” ideology.

In practice, it means that the Park Service can continue deleting materials while the appeals court considers the legality of the president’s directive, the executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” That executive order said that materials at national parks should not “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” It added that they should emphasize the “progress of the American people” and the “grandeur of the American landscape.”

Therefore, on the one hand there is the surge in antisemitism following the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7^th, the demonization of Jews worldwide being falsely accused of genocidal activities in Gaza, primary elections where candidates are judged on how anti-Israel they are, and a federal government in the US that seeks to purge the public sphere of anything that portrays the history of racial prejudice in America and the attempts at beating it back.

None of this represents a formula for civic society to be respectful and accommodating of all people regardless of their differences. The concept encoded in America’s Declaration of Independence stating that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights including the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, loses its purpose in an America that tolerates devaluing the “other” whatever the reason.

If America wants to continue the pursuit of the ideals codified by the founders to which they signed their names on July 4, 1776, good people will need to stand up and tell those who would destroy America with their venom: “Not on our watch!!!’

It is unfathomable to me that 100 million Americans have not yet marched on Washington to make known their support for a return to the values that really did make America great. Until that occurs the path to racial and religious hatred will only get wider and longer until the tipping point is reached and saving the country will no longer be possible with anarchy the result.

Former US Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis said: “Our government… teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” A word to the wise in these challenging times. America needs to take the next off ramp before it goes over the cliff.