Hasan Piker’s vile threat
Hasan Dogan Piker, the left-wing anti-Israel streamer, influencer and commentator, has suggested that American Jews who openly support Israel are exposing themselves to attack. This can only be regarded as a threat that could well harm the Jewish community in the United States.
“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action,” he wrote on Twitch on August 20. “Not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
“You’re running around basically tying your entire identity to a country that inevitably will be seen as basically Jewish ISIS,” he added in a reference to the Islamic State organization. “And you’re saying, as Jews, this is all we care about. You’re making antisemitism worse. I don’t know how people don’t recognize how dangerous this predicament is, how dangerous this is for Jews.”
Piker, a 35-year-old American of Turkish Muslim descent who regards himself as a progressive, posted these incendiary observations while commenting on the refusal of Michigan Jewish senator Jeremy Moss to endorse Abdul El-Sayed, who recently won the state’s Democratic senatorial primary by a narrow margin.
Piker’s vile comments were hardly surprising. Piker is intensely hostile to Israel, having compared Zionism to a form of mental illness and having said that Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel, which he describes as “a fascist settler colonial apartheid state.”
His remarks about Israel and Jews are beyond the pale. He demeans and delegitimizes the right of American citizens to support an internationality-recognized member state of the United Nations and the United States’ chief ally in the Middle East.
He surely knows that Israel is dear to the hearts and minds of most Jews, who may or may not endorse the policies of the current Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Still more insidiously, Piker implies that Jews supportive of Israel deserve to be targeted by violent thugs who share his deeply ideological anti-Zionist views.
Whether intentionally or not, Piker seems to be encouraging mass violence against Jews and egging on antisemites, of which there is no shortage in contemporary America.
Improbably enough, he presents himself as a friend of Jewish people. Sporting a “Free Palestine” bracelet during a broadcast from his California studio, he said, “I have fought against antisemitism my whole life.”
Piker’s disavowal of antisemitism is unpersuasive. Certainly, El-Sayed does not buy his specious claim.
El-Sayed, who is vying to be the first Muslim to sit in the US Senate, has distanced himself from Piker, one of his strongest supporters. Having interpreted Piker’s comments as a threat to American Jews, he condemned antisemitism as a “scourge,” denounced “any rhetoric that puts the (Jewish) community at risk,” and said that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters.”
El-Sayed, however, has not disavowed Piker, as The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, pointed out: “El-Sayed has struggled to build support among Jewish Democrats while holding on to the progressive and pro-Palestinian coalition that helped carry him through the primary. He has assured Jewish voters that his fierce criticism of Israel – and his political relationships with figures such as Piker – should not be seen as hostility toward Jews.”
Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party caucus in the US Congress, was critical of Piker as well. Without mentioning him by name, he said, “There is zero justification for threats against the safety of our Jewish brothers and sisters at a moment of rising hate. We will fight the cancer of antisemitism with fierce urgency.”
Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, also condemned Piker. As she put it, “No community should face the threat (of) violence for their political views. Period.”
Her congressional colleague from Michigan, Hillary Scholten, denounced Piker as “a hack who thrives on hate and shock and awe because he lacks substance.”
Micah Lasher, a Jewish pro-Israel progressive from New York City who is running for a seat in Congress, summed it up succinctly. “The issue isn’t just that he lumps all Jews together and holds us all accountable for the supposed evils of Israel,” he wrote of Piker on X. “It’s that his nonstop drive to demonize the world’s sole Jewish state, along with those who support its survival, crosses the line, by miles, between criticism and Jew hatred of the ancient variety.”
He is absolutely right.
Piker is a crude totalitarian demagogue who wants to manipulate and control the debate about Israel in the Democratic Party and the United States. Piker seeks to scare and intimidate Jews who love and support Israel, its flaws notwithstanding.
Haters like Piker who pretend to be outraged by antisemitism cannot be allowed to win this crucial battle. Since he has a substantial audience, his arguments and accusations must be refuted at every opportunity.
Silence is not the answer.