Once again, elements of the American left are rushing to defend an anti-Semite, in this case Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. Victor Davis Hanson, surveying several such recent outbursts, comments:
The far left is intertwined with Islamist activists. Both share a hatred of the U.S. and see the Middle East as a postcolonial victim of Western imperialism. . . . Radical Muslims and the left disguise their hatred of Jews by claiming that they are only championing downtrodden Palestinians. Few bother to ask them why a tiny democracy in a sea of autocracy is always singled out any time global attention turns to the question of refugees, disputed territories, or treatment of supposed religious minorities. In other words, the hater of Jews always says, “I have no problem with the Jewish people, but I do not like the imperialist and colonial policies of the Jewish state of Israel.” . . .
Anti-Semitism . . . is also deeply embedded among the elite black progressive community. Numerous contemporary African-American national leaders —Jesse Jackson (“Hymietown”), Al Sharpton (“If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house”), the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (“Them Jews aren’t going to let him [Obama] talk to me.”)—have at some point trafficked in anti-Semitism.
The Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan is no outlier. He has been prominent in the progressive Women’s March, has had his picture taken with a then-smiling Senator Barack Obama (the photo was repressed until after Obama left the presidency), and he was once close to the former Democratic National Party vice-chairman Keith Ellison. Representative Hank Johnson, like Farrakhan, has compared West Bank Jews to “termites.” . . .
In such old-new binaries, Jews and Israelis are now recast as “privileged whites.” So their frequent attackers expect immunity from condemnation; they seek refuge as marginalized people for whom charges of bias or privilege do not so readily apply. . . .
Read more on National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/progressive-anti-semitism-multicultural-left-new-york-times/