To some, the political left appears to be a natural home for Jews; for others, it appears a source of endless betrayal, anti-Semitism, and hostility toward Israel. A recent book by Philip Mendes attempts to make sense of the history. David Hirsh writes in his review:

[W]hile a significant minority of Jews were influential within the radical left, a substantial majority of Jews remained outside of it. . . . A contemporary imbalance follows: while a large and influential proportion of left anti-Zionists are Jewish, only a very small percentage of Jews are anti-Zionists.

On the other hand, argues Mendes, the left, broadly conceived, did have a number of contact points with the wider Jewish communities. The left’s universalist tradition of equality coincided with the interest in emancipation of the Jews; many Jews in Europe and Russia were poor and the left championed the poor; there was a Jewish tradition of literacy and intellectualism which fed easily into the left and that attracted some Jews; Jews moved toward the towns and cities early and the left was a significantly urban movement; Jews often had an ambiguous place in relation to the identities of the emerging nationalisms among which they lived, as did the left, so notions of cosmopolitanism had the potential to become a shared value, as well as a source of particular hostility from the outside. . . .

When movements came to power in Russia and Eastern Europe which described themselves as socialist, they were also pioneers of state-imposed anti-Semitism; the experience of Nazism did little to inoculate Communist states against anti-Semitism, it only drove them to articulate it in slightly different formulations.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.