When the (Supposed) Enemy of Your Enemy Is Not Your Friend
Why I can't stomach the new right-wing enthusiasm for fighting antisemitism
For most of my life, it was possible to believe that America was just about the safest place in the world to be a Jew. Not that there wasn’t still antisemitism in the hearts of millions, or the occasional incident of vandalism or violence, or the constant buzzing presence of neo-Nazis, frightening but small in number. But where have Jews thrived more than here? Where have they prospered as much, won as much acclaim for their artistic and intellectual pursuits, achieved as many positions of influence?
All the antisemitism I experienced growing up in a waspy suburban town with just a handful of Jews was the occasional snide comment, which was easy enough to brush off. Being born when I was, I never faced a university quota or was denied a job because of my heritage (as far as I could tell). The stories of constant anti-Jewish hostility told by my elders felt like ancient history.
So what is happening now is unprecedented in my lifetime, and likely the lifetime of most of you. Since the Hamas attack on October 7 there has been a truly appalling explosion of antisemitism, both here in the US and around the world. It’s actually the second recent wave, the first of which came with Donald Trump’s emergence as a national political figure.
This picture is a complex one. It includes right-wing antisemitism; left-wing antisemitism; and questionable expressions of concern for antisemitism that may be little more than a cover for Christian nationalism, Islamophobia, or both.
There are some Jews who welcome even the latter, who open their arms to “support” from the nakedly antisemitic Donald Trump (more on him in a bit), or Ted Cruz, or Sarah Palin sporting a Magen David necklace, or the odd end-times preacher who “supports” Israel — or more specifically, cheers right-wing Israeli governments and their efforts to make any two-state solution impossible — so that the Rapture will be accelerated. After which, of course, Jews who do not pledge themselves to Jesus will burn for all eternity in the lake of fire.
To those people, who claim to have the best interests of me and mine at heart, I say in the most polite terms I can muster: No frigging thanks. The Jews do not need the likes of you to defend us.
Capitol Hill poseurs
Republicans’ enthusiasm for this topic can not be doubted; antisemitism has rocketed to the top of the GOP’s PR agenda. The House of Representatives just passed an exceedingly problematic measure condemning antisemitism; many Jewish Democrats opposed it because it declared that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” which is not only simply false, it would make a great many Jews into antisemites. And at a congressional hearing on Tuesday, a parade of far-right members of Congress harangued the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT for not doing enough to combat antisemitism on their campuses.
Indeed, there have been numerous appalling antisemitic incidents on campuses since October 7. You can certainly criticize various university administrations for not responding quickly enough, or in the proper way, to those events. But that hearing — and, lord help me, I watched all four hours of it — illuminated little more than the bad faith of the assembled Republicans.
The lowlights included Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina — famous for shouting “You lie!” at President Obama — demanding that each of the university presidents give him a precise percentage of conservative professors they employ. When they all answered that they have no idea because they don’t document the political leanings of their faculty, the half-witted congressman claimed that meant they have “none,” and “the result of that is antisemitism.”
Another supposed friend of the Jews, Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia, began his condemnation of antisemitism by saying that “biblical illiteracy is the number one problem in America,” because “The [biblical] prophecies, every one of them, has come to fruition. Every single one of them.” Good to know.
But most of the action centered on Rep. Elise Stefanik, who even in the halls of Congress stands out as a phony of epic proportions; she started her career as a moderate Republican but pivoted to become a shameless Trump toady once he took over her party. Preening and grandstanding for the Fox News cameras, Stefanik harangued the president of Harvard in particular, demanding that she resign for her sins, which included waiting an entire three months into her tenure to visit the university’s Hillel. Her colleagues were so supportive that a half-dozen of them gave her part of their own time to continue her cross-examinations.
Now maybe Stefanik is utterly sincere in her affection for the Jews and her commitment to stamping out antisemitism as an end in itself, not as a tool for some other agenda. But color me skeptical.
Looking under the hood of conservative opposition to antisemitism
I would ask these passionate right-wing defenders of the Jewish people this question: Why do you oppose antisemitism? What’s the deeper principle that motivates you?
Is it because you are passionate about protecting minority populations? Is it because you hate oppression in all its forms? Is it because you have a tireless thirst for justice? Is it because you so admire central Jewish values like compassion, empathy, and the love of learning?
Well…no. These are not the things motivating Republican concern about antisemitism. If they were, then they’d care just as much about Islamophobia, and they’d be able to muster the same sympathy and grief for 15,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza by Israeli bombardment (as of now) as they do for the 1,200 Israelis who were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7.
But of course, they don’t. What’s really going on here is that condemning antisemitism is a way of serving conservatives’ anti-Muslim and anti-leftist agenda. It’s no accident that Republicans’ affection for the state of Israel really kicked into gear only after September 11, when they realized that the void in their hearts created by the end of the Cold War could be replaced by a hatred for Muslims. And only now, when left-wing antisemitism has become more visible than right-wing antisemitism, has their outrage over threats to Jews really blossomed.
Just look at who dominates their party. The Republicans’ recently elected speaker of the House, as my friend Sarah Posner has detailed, “is the most unabashedly Christian nationalist speaker in history,” someone who has devoted much of his career to dismantling the separation of church and state so Christians will be given special status to ignore the laws they don’t like and make their particular religious ideals the ones we all have to live under. This is the party that claims George Soros is the secretive power behind every event they don’t like, that says “globalists” (the “rootless cosmopolitans” of today) are destroying America, and that is full of people who made their careers by courting white nationalists, neo-Confederates, and racists of various stripes.
But no argument for mistrusting Republican devotion to protecting the Jews is more compelling than the fact that this is and will for the foreseeable future be Donald Trump’s party, one that is currently rubbing its hands in gleeful anticipation at his plan to turn the American government into a quasi-fascist dictatorship.
Trump will of course insist that he is “the least antisemitic person you’ve ever seen,” but he has spent years tossing off rancid antisemitic stereotypes about Jews being shrewd “negotiators” who are obsessed with money. The fact that he thinks he’s praising Jews when he says these things makes it no more excusable. He also refers to Benjamin Netanyahu as “your prime minister” when talking to American Jews and calls liberal Jews “disloyal” when they criticize Netanyahu’s government. He once told a Jewish audience, “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians.” This past Rosh Hashanah he sent a social media message to “liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel” by not voting for him, telling them to “learn from your mistake & make better choices moving forward!” And you may recall this:
We all remember the reaction to his election; when actual Nazis are cheering your victory, that doesn’t necessarily make you a Nazi, but it does say a great deal about who you are. So no one was really surprised when he reacted to a march of torch-wielding neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates in Charlottesville by saying there were “very fine people on both sides,” or when he dines with white supremacists.
Yet for years, Trump insisted that Jews were about to start supporting him, because, he claimed, Democrats “have become an anti-Jewish party.” His clear belief was that if Jews felt threatened, they would find safety in the embrace of a right-wing authoritarian like him.
It didn’t happen; Jews overwhelmingly disapproved of Trump and voted against him in 2020 just as they had in 2016. What he failed to understand is that most American Jews aren’t liberal because we’re laboring under some kind of delusion about who our real friends are. The Jewish history of displacement and discrimination informs our liberal beliefs, including our advocacy for racial and political equality.
And we’ve seen demagogues like Trump before. We know where giving power to authoritarians like him leads. When he promises anew to ban immigration from Muslim countries and screen visitors for their political sentiments, we don’t say “What a friend to the Jews!”
So you’ll forgive me for having a little trouble believing that a Trump lickspittle like Elise Stefanik and her far-right compatriots actually care all that much about people like me, when they can go right from condemning Harvard’s reaction to antisemitism to working to reelect someone who offers the best chance America has ever had to install a fascist dictatorship. Absolutely nothing in the values expressed by Trump and his cronies suggests that their supposed love of the Jews is anything other than a cudgel to be used against other minority groups.
Some might argue that the fight against antisemitism could use all the help it can get, even from unsavory quarters. Perhaps. But I’m sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t trust these people for a second.
Some recent posts, in case you missed them:
Sometimes You Gotta Fight When You’re a Man: Anxious masculinity and preening congressmen
Announcing the All-New 2024 Tesla Douchemobile: The preposterous Cybertruck, and what our cars say about all of us
Good Journalism Will Not Save Us From Trump: But bad journalism can doom us
Joe Biden Is Not Your New Bicycle - and That’s OK: Maybe the best thing is not to be too emotionally invested in your vote for president
Thanks for this, Paul. Sharing with a number of my friends.