It’s no surprise that International Holocaust Remembrance Day came and went this year with nary a peep from the Democratic Party, although it was recognized by President Trump. The Democrats have a serious anti-Semitism problem — and it’s growing.
Making matters worse is that very few of them acknowledge it. Most look away, pretending it’s not there or deliberately not seeing it at all. Almost none comment publicly, let alone criticize. This includes a number of prominent Jewish politicians (Chuck Schumer most nauseating among them) and their media allies, many of whom are also Jewish.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi recently appointed a new congresswoman (Ilhan Omar) to the House Foreign Affairs Committee who is not only anti-Semitic, but also, it now seems, sympathetic to ISIS. Again, the outcries from the Democrats were muffled or non-existent, at least until she outted herself as also sympathetic to the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela. Specially to be condemned here is the abject cowardice of the Minnesota Star Tribune in refusing to investigate Omar when she was still running, despite overwhelming evidence, she was unfit for office.
Among the leadership or semi-leadership, only Debbie Wasserman Schultz — of all people — has stood up against this metastasizing bigotry, absenting herself from the Washington Women’s March because of the Judaeophobia (let’s use that word for a change) of organizers Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory.
This Democratic-liberal-progressive anti-Semitism has been developing for a long time, even before Maxine Waters’ hideous embrace of Farrakhan (never repudiated, nor were numerous photos of other Democratic Party pols with America’s most famous anti-Semite, almost as if he were an election totem) or the notorious 2012 Villaraigosa voice vote on Jerusalem. Nor do we, even now, know the content of that still hidden L.A. Times tape of the Rashid Khalidi going-away party cum Israel-bash attended by Michelle and Barack Obama — that’s the same Obama who was himself photographed smiling with Farrakhan. (Imagine if Trump were photographed with David Duke.) Rev. Al Sharpton (an Obama favorite) and Jesse Jackson have also had their moments in the anti-Semitic sun, though those are somewhat further back — at least we hope so.
Most of this noxious bigotry (call it the Iran deal by proxy) is obscured by the hypocritical mask of anti-Zionism, but it’s noxious bigotry nonetheless. (Apparently these people pretend to hear the word “Israelis,” not “Jews,” when the chant goes up at demonstrations, “Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!”) And then there’s the “dual loyalty” canard coming to us via the tweets of new Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, backed up, not surprisingly, by Bernie Sanders.
Needless to say, however, the often cowardly — or is it opportunistic — behavior of the politicians who look away is ratified and applauded by a Jewish “liberal” public that has been looking away for years. They do so even while their leftist views are redoubled á la Robespierre and then turned upon them via the growing anti-Semitism on our college campuses. Nevertheless, every ethnic, religious or grievance group but their own still gets these Jews’ adamant, usually unswerving, support. It seems they missed (or forgot) the words of Rabbi Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”
Well, when is coming soon, certainly by the Democratic Party convention when its Middle East policy is hammered out, but probably sooner — at the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) annual convention in late March. AIPAC has always made it a point to be as bipartisan as possible, emphasizing that both Democrats and Republicans support Israel. But these days that seems like a charade. How can it be kept up?
It’s simple to say the Jewish “liberals” (or progressives or whatever they want to call themselves) are not Jews at all because most do not practice. But Hitler, of course, did not care. He swept up the communists with the Hasidim. The whiff of Berlin 1938 is in the air. The Democratic Party better police itself or the whiff will turn into a stench.
Roger L. Simon — co-founder and CEO emeritus of PJ Media — is an award-winning author and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member