Glass Houses

The recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks in NYC and other locales has the media all abuzz. They were quick to condemn the attacks and should be praised for that. But they were equally quick to promote the outrageous and mendacious claims made by Democrat Mayor of NYC, Bill DeBlasio (a staunch left-winger) and Dem Rep. Eric Swalwell (a left-wing member of Congress), who stated that Donald Trump was responsible for the atmosphere that created the attacks. The prevailing media narrative (encouraged by the Democrats) is that right wing white supremacists are solely responsible for the anti-Semitism that is increasing yearly.

Extremists on the Right have always been involved in anti-Semitism, and they have been rightly condemned for their words and actions. No decent person condones their position on Jews and even fewer applaud their actions in that regard. They are scum.

But an equally vicious form of anti-Semitism has evolved and grown over the past few decades, and it's coming from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Debbie Hall comments:

... unlike the right-wing “white” version [of anti-Semitism], those on the left seem to have a very difficult time admitting that there are murderous Jew-haters within their ranks and they will deflect and make excuses and twist themselves into pretzels to avoid the stark reality that antisemites live on the left as much as they do on the right. When antisemites ran for office under the Republican ticket, the Republican Party denounced them and refused to back them. When neo-Nazi Arthur Jones ran for Congress, Tim Schneider, Chair of the Illinois Republican Party responded by stating, “We’ll use every means available to us, social media, and our press releases, everything, to ensure that Republican voters do not vote for Arthur Jones in the primary.” To their credit, the Republican Party responded appropriately to the antisemites running under their banner.

In contrast, when antisemitic Democratic candidate Maria Estrada ran for State Assembly in California, the California Democratic Party was silent on her antisemitism. Privately they acknowledged that she was a problem in my conversations with them, but publicly, I couldn’t find any denouncements of this candidate and they certainly didn’t actively work against her campaign as the Republicans did with their antisemitic candidates. In fact, the Democratic Socialists of America ENDORSED Maria Estrada and ultimately she came in second. Estrada was another leftist who touted the “wisdom” of Louis Farrakhan [a blatant anti-Semite].

Then we had the Women’s March antisemitism fiasco and their affiliation with and endorsement of Louis Farrakhan. Linda Sarsour [a blatant anti-Semite] spoke at one of his events and Tamika Mallory referred to him as the “Greatest of All Time.” Despite the leadership being called to task by most Jewish liberals, the liberal community at-large was not only silent, but they continued to endorse this Women’s March in spite of the antisemitic views of the leaders.

When Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib made outrageous antisemitic remarks on social media, there was the quiet slapping of Omar’s hand and total silence with regard to Tlaib by the Democratic National Committee and Speaker Pelosi. In fact, because the despised Donald Trump rightly called Omar and Tlaib out for their antisemitism, the kneejerk liberal stance was to defend them ...

In fact, so far, the only person of color who has had consequences for his antisemitism is Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired from CNN for reciting the genocidal mantra, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The editors of the New York Post are blunt when they write about a growing strain of anti-Semitism among some African Americans:

Some black leaders even promote anti-Semitism: Recall when City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo blamed a spate of violent anti-Jewish attacks on black fear of being “pushed out” by Jewish landlords? She later apologized, but Jersey City school-board member Joan Terrell-Paige stands by her remarks, after the killings in her city this month, calling Jews “brutes” who “waved bags of money.”

The national Democratic Party itself has been increasingly open to anti-Semites: Bernie Sanders has embraced extremists like Linda Sarsour and Rep. Ilhan Omar. After Omar smeared Jews with her “It’s all about the Benjamins” quip, House Democrats shied from censuring her; Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed Omar didn’t mean to be anti-Semitic.

And nearly every Democrat makes sure to kiss Al Sharpton’s ring, despite his role fanning flames during the anti-Jewish riot in Crown Heights.

But to be realistic, the Dems have their narrative and they'll stick to it. Hypocrisy, yes, but hardly unsurprising. In a perfect world, it's the media who would keep the Dems honest, pointing out the growing anti-Semitism coming from the left. Conservative writer Ben Shapiro comments on the media and its reaction:

The same media that will ask whether President Donald Trump's executive orders designed to protect Jews on campus are ackshually anti-Semitic will ignore the fact that former President Barack Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years -- the same Jeremiah Wright who railed against Jews and Israel routinely during those years; who said Jews kept Obama from talking with him after the election; and who avers that "Jesus was a Palestinian." Democratic candidates who suggest that Trump has emboldened anti-Semites will make pilgrimage to Rev. Al Sharpton, who was instrumental in not one but two anti-Semitic riots. The same commentators who will police Republican references to George Soros for hints of anti-Semitism completely excuse open anti-Semitism when it comes from Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. It's deemed completely vital by our intelligentsia to survey white Americans for signs of white supremacy and, by extension, signs of anti-Semitism. Those same intelligentsia will patently ignore the fact that anti-Semitic attitudes among black Americans far outweigh similar attitudes among other racial groups, according to repeated polling by the Anti-Defamation League.

Anti-Semitism grows when the victims become secondary and the perpetrators become primary. If you're only concerned about anti-Semitism from white supremacists but utterly blithe about Jews being beaten in the streets of one of the nation's largest cities by suspects who clearly are not white supremacists, you're part of the problem.

The Left loves to characterize itself as our moral compass—pure of thought, sensitive to the downtrodden, and oh-so-woke on social issues. Their problem is that their compass never seems to swing in the direction of leftists (including more than a few social justice warriors) who "morality" drives them to anti-Semitic statements and behavior. To use a well-worn cliche, "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

UPDATE:
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Dominic Green adds some additional commentary:

The guilt and possible motives of Grafton Thomas, the suspect arrested in the Monsey attack, remain to be established. Meanwhile, to the enormous embarrassment of white liberals, the Democratic party, the mayor of New York City and much of the American media, CCTV footage and police reports attest that the majority of attacks over the last three years have been carried out by African Americans or Hispanics.

It is no more than the sorry truth to say that African Americans poll higher on anti-Jewish attitudes than any other native-born American population, with immigrant Hispanics polling similarly poorly. It is another sorry truth of American history since the 1960s that a minority of radicals have claimed the authority to represent African Americans and then incited against Jews.

It is an even sorrier truth that the Democratic party has entered into a strategic alliance with these demagogues and bigots in order to win African American votes — and with the shameful connivance of a majority of Jewish American politicians. The fact that Republican presidents have pursued similarly unscrupulous and damaging strategies in their cultivation of white votes — George H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton gambit, Donald Trump’s use of the ‘birther’ myth — merely confirms that squalid racial politics remain endemic in the United States.

We live in an era where victimization is emphasized and in some warped way, even celebrated.The Democratic party along with their trained hamsters in the media have worked overtime to convince selected minority groups that they are victims (think: the perpetual use of the phrases "systemic racism" or "white privilege" that are far too often used as an excuse for underperformance by some segments of minority communities). That seems to encourage an extremist fringe within these communities to act out violently against "oppressors" who their own leaders sometimes imply are Jews.

The old anti-Semitism comes from the Right. The new anti-Semitism comes from the Left. Both are despicable, and the only way to address them is to admit they both exist.