Antisemitism – Suppression of Inconvenient Facts

Much has been said, rightfully so, about the FBI’s inane initial reaction to the terror attack on Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. To suggest that an attack on a synagogue on Shabbat “was not directly connected to the Jewish community” is so ludicrous that it requires no explicit rebuttal. Its absurdity is self-evident.

Unfortunately, there are other, equally alarming examples of official Washington’s insensitivity to antisemitism.

Hours after the Texas attack began a White House statement failed to mention that a synagogue was involved or that one of the hostages was a rabbi. This is nothing new. Recall that President Obama called the 2015 deadly attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris a “random” attack on “a bunch of folks in a deli.”

Consider the situation in Congress:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi absurdly excused Representative Ilhan Omar’s intolerable pattern of antisemitic pronouncements by asserting that, “[Omar] has a different experience in use of words.  [She] doesn’t realize that some of them are fraught with meaning that she didn’t realize.”

There has been scant criticism of Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her close ties to unrepentant antisemite Louis Farrakhan. Nor have the Democrats censured her for anti-Israel libels such as, “Israel is a racist state and they [read the Jews] would deny Palestinians, like my grandmother, access to a vaccine. They don’t believe that she’s an equal human being that deserves to live, deserves to be able to be protected from this global pandemic.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly defended Omar and Tlaib, has compared migrant facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border to “concentration camps”- a form of Holocaust denial, and has praised support from numerous antisemitic groups for her criticism of Israel.

Many Democrats support the BDS movement – recognized by the State Department as intrinsically antisemitic. They enthusiastically support Black Lives Matter founders with a record of antisemitism and close ties to terrorist Linda Sarsour.  We saw no Democratic outrage when BLM supporters attacked Jewish institutions in California during the riots in 2020, nor when Jewish Trump supporters were pulled from their cars and beaten.

Much of this stems from the philosophy of moral relativism and two related terms – “narrative” and “speaking one’s truth” – that have become popular of late. Both terms suggest that there is no such thing as objective fact. Each person has the right to change the truth to match his/her personal perspective. Determine a conclusion a priori, then mold the facts – which are mere suggestions – to fit.

Democrats proclaim that the overarching threat to democracy comes from the American Right. Thus, the term “domestic terrorist” is applied to anyone who opposes the Administration’s woke agenda, including even parents who attend school board meetings to protest what they see as overt racism being taught to their children.

A British subject with possible ties to Islamic terror organizations attacking a synagogue in an effort to free a vitriolic antisemitic Pakistani nick-named “Lady Al-Qaeda” who is serving an 86-year prison sentence for attempting to murder American service members in Afghanistan simply does not fit the Democratic narrative. Inconvenient facts, i.e., the antisemitic nature of the attack, must therefore be suppressed.

The Left’s inconsistent reaction in order to fit their narrative is not limited to events involving Jews. Consider the disparity in reaction to two recent events:

Caucasian Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people and injured a third during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He claimed he had acted in self-defense. Even though all of the people he shot were white, he was immediately labeled a white supremacist by President Biden. Many on the Left continue to vilify him as a murderer to this day, even though he was acquitted of these charges at trial.

Compare the treatment of Darrell Brooks who intentionally drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six and injuring sixty. A career criminal with a rap sheet dating back decades, he shared social media posts promoting violence against white people. Even so, his obvious racism was minimized, and his name soon dropped out of news reports and public consciousness.

When the truth depends on each person’s perspective, we have no truth at all.  When important information is ignored, suppressed or mischaracterized because it does not fit preconceived notions, we can no longer rely on the veracity of our government or the news media. Antisemitism, indeed, all forms of hate, can be eradicated only when people on both ends of the political spectrum acknowledge the immutability of certain fundamental truths and morals.