Holocaust Remembrance Day 2018: Why Is Left-Wing Antisemitism Ignored?

Photo Credit: wikimedia

{Originally posted to the author’s blog, The Lid}

January 27th is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust on the anniversary of the day the Russian Army liberated Auschwitz in 1945. This year’s day is particularly relevant as less than eight decades after Hitler was defeated, Antisemitism is growing at an accelerated rate throughout the world, even here in America, but is ignored by most.

As explained by the United States State Department Contemporary Examples of Antisemitism include:

• Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews (often in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion).

• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as a collective—especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

• Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, the state of Israel, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
• Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest of their own nations.

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis

• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis

• Blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions

• Applying double standards for Israel by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation

• Multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist [also known as Zionism]

The amazing part is that the definition was created under the administration of  Barack Obama, who was perhaps the most anti-Semitic president American History. Among other things, Obama blamed the Jews for pushing Bush #43 into invading Iraq (not true), did not believe that Jews were targeted in a Paris terror attack on a Kosher supermarket,  held a double standard and made demands he didn’t make of the Palestinians or real countries.  As did his two secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Obama blamed Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions.

Anti-Semitism in this country occurs regularly and is mostly ignored. The progressive movement in America generates most of the Antisemitism in the country (if you don’t believe me just go to sites such as Daily Kos, or Huffington Post, and search the words “Jew” and “Israel”). Interestingly whenever a grass-roots conservative movement begins to grow, those same progressives use fake charges of Antisemitism as tools against the conservatives such as President Trump, or Senator Ted Cruz.

Below are some recent, real examples of mainstreamed Jew-hatred, notice that

• Black Lives Matter: Hillary supports the Black Lives Matter moment (BLM). In its official demands document the Black Lives Matter moment supports the anti-Semitic BDS movement.

• Last March’s “Day Without Women” protests were run by a Palestinian Terrorist who killed two Jewish students, groups who call for the destruction of the State of Israel, and groups who participate in the anti-Semitic BDS movement. The mainstream media ignored the hatred.

• One of those “day without women” leaders was Linda Sarsour who also ran the women’s march in January 2018. Sarsour is both anti-Semitic and anti-American. She blames her reputation of hatred on the Jewish controlled media. Her anti-Semitism is downplayed by the MSM and despite her hatred, she is supported by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

• Max Blumenthal, son of Hillary Clinton buddy Sid Blumenthal often makes “blood libel accusations against Israel. His latest book Goliath includes chapters comparing Israel to the Nazis, such as “The Concentration Camp,” or “The Night of Broken Glass,” and others which are just slanderous, like “How to Kill Goyim and Influence People,” all of them reminiscent of the anti-Semitic blood libels popular in medieval Europe. Max’s writings were emailed to Hillary by his father. She sent them around to the State Department to read.

• Center For American Progress (CAP) In the lead up to the 2012 last election Politico published a piece about how CAP was fighting to change the Democratic Party to the Anti-Israel party.  Stories by CAP bloggers had appeared in the vehemently anti-Israel fringe publication The Electronic Intifada.  CAP bloggers have also accused American Jews of a dual loyalty, calling them “Israel-Firsters”  The Simon Wiesenthal Center went beyond calling CAP anti-Israel, they called them anti-Semitic.

• Laurie Cumbo– A NY City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo justified the black-on-Jew “knockout game” attacks in Brooklyn because they were worried “they would be pushed out by their Jewish landlords or by Jewish families looking to purchase homes.”  She made it clear that Jewish real-estate speculators are a prime enemy in her anti-gentrification outlook.

• Media Matters For America: Uses anti-Semitic rhetoric including the canard that American Jews have a dual loyalty (they use the term Israel-Firsters). They’ve also claimed, “evil Zionist lobby” controls both the media and the U.S. foreign policy. Media Matters once called this blogger a Jew-basher, but it didn’t bother me because they did it on Shabbos when I am not online.

• The Democratic Party’s number two person is Keith Ellison; A supporter of Lewis Farrakhan and the Muslim Brotherhood with a track record of being both anti-Israel and Antisemitism,

• Al Sharpton: Led two anti-Semitic pogroms in NYC, Crown Heights, and Freddy’s Fashion Mart. According to the sworn testimony of Efraim Lipkind, a former Hasidic resident of Crown Heights:“Then we had a famous man, Al Sharpton, who came down, and he said Tuesday night, kill the Jews, two times. I heard him, and he started to lead a charge across the street to Utica. —“ That was probably the nicest thing Sharpton has said about Jews.  But the MSM treats him as someone who deserves respect. And he is honored by politicians such as NY Senator Chuck Schumer.

• The Mainstream Media ignores antisemitism and treats the Holocaust as a political tool. When its convenient, Liberals and the MSM use the Holocaust as a political weapon In 2016 the Washington Post ran two different opinion pieces inappropriately comparing then-candidate Trump to Hitler. They also ignore inappropriate Holocaust references by other liberals such Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the Huffington Post, Comedian Louis C.K, and Rachel Maddow. Or when  Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown compared Republican governors John Kasich, Scott Walker and Chris Christie to the Nazis. They were silent when Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC)  compared conservative bloggers (like me) to Hitler. As long as it’s a liberal saying, inappropriate Holocaust references are just fine.

• Richard Falk former professor at Princeton, and former UN Special Rapporteur to the Palestinians,  Falk believes “that the Holocaust is a massive fraud on the rest of us, with their lavish, self-financed Holocaust Museums all over America and the world. The Holocaust myth is instrumental in maintaining American support of Israel, which leads to worldwide terrorism.” Or that he claims, “Jewish people… have decided to bring down human civilization (like Sampson) ” More recently he published a paper for the UN falsely claiming that Israel practices apartheid. The report was rebuked by the UN Secretary-General and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Niki Haley.

And it’s not just here in America. Antisemitism is state-sponsored in Europe:

• The European Union:  the European Union’s recent decision to label Jewish goods from Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) and the Golan Heights is a perfect example of the anti-Semitic double standard. As explained by former Israel Ambassador the US Michael Oren, There are more than 200 territorial disputes in the world, but Europe does not label products as made in Chinese-occupied Tibet or Turkish-occupied Cyprus. The Palestinian Authority has twice — in 2000 and 2008 — rejected Israeli offers of statehood in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and almost all of the West Bank. Instead, Palestinian leaders have ordered or encouraged terrorist attacks that have killed more than 1,500 Israelis and maimed many thousands more.

• In January 2016, France and Italy marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by hosting the President of Iran, a country that holds a cartoon competition featuring works trivializing or denying the Holocaust, and threatens to destroy the Jewish state.

• The number of antisemitic incidents in the UK rose by more than a third to record levels in 2016, according to data released by the Community Security Trust. Last September the NY Times reported that many British Jews believe the rising Antisemitism is connected to strident anti-Israel politics with which leader of the opposition about Party Jeremy Corbin sympathizes.  A year into Mr. Corbyn’s tenure, there is no trust and precious little dialogue between the Labour leader and Britain’s Jews. The country’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has spoken of Labour’s “severe” problem of anti-Semitism” Corbin as worked closely with Holocaust deniers, praised anti-Semitic extremists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends.

• 100 British Labour MPs have denounced their own party for failing to significantly discipline a prominent antisemitic member former mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who had falsely claimed that Adolf Hitler was a Zionist and that the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis. Livingstone had been a top ally of Labour’s radical leader Jeremy Corbyn, who appointed him to oversee a key defense policy review. In a decision that drew condemnation from Britain’s Jewish organizations and its chief rabbi, the party committee opted merely to suspend Livingstone from holding office for one year.

• The Norwegian Ministry of Finance has excluded Israeli companies, such as Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus, from its Global Pension Fund, a fund that invests the national wealth in foreign stocks and bonds, and which holds more than one percent of all global stocks. The Norwegian trade union EL & IT, which represents workers from the energy and telecommunications sectors, has boycotted the Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union.

• Recently the Swedish Parliament blasted a deal between Volvo, the country’s most important car maker, and the Israeli bus companies. Volvo provides, in fact, some buses which keep Israelis alive in Judea and Samaria. Jewish schoolchildren in these areas have to use armored buses to avoid being shot and murdered by Palestinian terrorists. But according to the chairman of Sweden’s parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, Kenneth G. Forslund, their right to life, granted by Volvo’s buses, is “a violation of international law”. Swedish dock workers sponsored a week-long boycott of Israeli ships and goods.

• Even though ISIS claimed responsibility,  Sweden’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Margot Wallström blamed the November 13, 2015 massacres in Paris on Israel, claiming  that “to counter the radicalization we have to go back to the situation in the Middle East where the Palestinians see that there is no future for them and must accept a desperate situation and resort to violence”.

Israel is demonized and held to double standards not used against any other country including some of the world’s most despotic regimes, after eight years of the double-standard by President Barack Obama that was ignored by the MSM, anti-Semitic attitudes are more prevalent here in the US. In Europe, it is the government’s leading the Jew-hatred.

The same people who criticized the Israeli fence built to keep out terrorists were silent about the fence Saudi Arabia built on their border with Yemen. The “left” repeatedly calls for boycotts of Israel because they claim it is “an apartheid state.” However, Israel is so totally free of apartheid. Anyone who has spent ten minutes there knows the accusation to be an outright lie. So why keep on saying something untrue?