Progressives must denounce their own anti-Semites

We recently saw a rally with torches lit as neo-Nazis and the KKK chanted and marched through Charlottesville, Virginia.  Good people everywhere were horrified and recoiled in horror upon hearing the Unite the Right rally goers shouting, “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil,” two Nazi-era slogans.  Many asked themselves how, in 2017, how Americans could still have such hatred of Jews and how they could be so public and proud of it?

Meanwhile, at the Dyke March Chicago, Jews were kicked out of the march for having rainbow flags with the Jewish Star of David.

Meanwhile, a convicted Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Jews by planting a bomb in a market in Israel was one of the organizers of the Women’s March on DC.

Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter™ put forth an official platform denying the right of Jews to have self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

Meanwhile, Progressive elements support the BDS movement, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, against Israel to protest an apartheid that doesn’t exist, an occupation that doesn’t exist, and a genocide that doesn’t exist.  The lies about Israel are rarely questioned and automatically accepted as fact by people who believe they’re on the side of what’s right.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish bankers, the Rothschilds, the Jewish lobby and other themes that one might see on the Daily Stormer permeate Progressive websites and movements.  Progressive depictions of Zionism as racism or Zionism as a rightwing movement with a quest to displace people and grow Israel are widely promoted and believed.  Crazy, isn’t it?

As a liberal Jew, I have had to deal with anti-Semitism among Progressives for years. I tried to support Occupy Wall Street, but had to quit in the face of the anti-Semitism that was normalized among OWS members.  An allegedly Progressive movement, one of Occupy’s active members was someone by the name of Alan Escher Auernheimer aka Weev, a black hat hacker who is the self-described Chief Technology Officer of The Daily Stormer.  Progressives and people like the Weev stood together bashing Jews at Occupy.

Same goes for Black Lives Matter.  In 2015, I celebrated my birthday by standing outside North Charleston City Hall to protest the murder of Walter Scott.  Also present at this protest was Malik Zulu Shabazz, a vile, virulent anti-Semite.   In doing what I thought of as the right thing, I was forced to look directly into the face of a man who characterizes Jews as a “cheating people,” claims that today’s Jews are imposters and refers to designer Marc Jacobs as a “diamond merchant.”  It’s always amazing to me that anyone who has suffered under generalizations and stereotypes would do the same to another, yet there he was.  Student of Louis Farrakhan.  In my face.

In the 1970s, at a time when Palestinians actually WERE occupied by Israel after Israel recaptured the West Bank without annexation, Progressives understood that supporting Israel’s existence as the Jewish homeland was necessary to ensure that Jews would never be victims of genocide again.  Having self-determination on the land from whence they originated was imperative to the self-preservation of the Jewish people.  Progressives saw the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists.  Progressives saw the murder of Leon Klinghoffer as his wheelchair was thrown off the Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists.  Progressives understood that Israel hadn’t declared war on anyone and Progressives understood that the Arab world had an unnatural hatred of Jews and that alone was their problem with Israel’s existence.  As time went on and historical events became further removed, and when the Palestinians realized their tactics weren’t fostering any support for their objectives, they changed their tactics and started pushing a revisionist history to replace actual history and it worked.  Today we see Progressives who mistakenly believe that Jews invaded a sovereign Arab country called Palestine and instituted separation measures to persecute and kill Palestinians.  For the first time in the history of the world, Progressives now falsely characterize Jews as white Europeans, even though it was white Europeans who killed Jews because they WEREN’T white Europeans.

So to the Progressives who are appalled by the murderous, right-wing anti-Semites, it’s long past time for you to look at the anti-Semites in your own woodpiles and drive them out if you are truly against anti-Semitism.  If you truly are against anti-Semitism, then it’s time to listen to the liberal Jews in your midst who have been screaming at you to look at the issues without immediately and automatically slamming the door closed by claiming “Zionist propaganda” when being presented with facts that dispel the anti-Semitic narrative you’ve believed and have been espousing.  It’s time for you to look in the mirror Dyke March Chicago, Slutwalk Chicago, Black Lives Matter™, Occupy Wall Street, DC Women’s March, Antifa and the rest to see that you have been behaving no differently than those marching through Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

At least the right-wing Nazis and KKK are honest about their anti-Semitism.  That’s a lot easier to deal with than the covert anti-Semitism among Progressives.