American Jews deserve better
At the beginning of summer, in a “private” letter to U.S. Antisemitism Envoy Deborah Lipstadt, Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Joe Biden’s plan to fight antisemitism (the so-called “national strategy to combat antisemitism”) “a historic moment deserving of recognition and gratitude. … The formidable language of the report contains a sound strategy, well-defined pillars and concrete, viable goals that will help create more tolerant and open societies.”
That’s absurd.
There are so many reasons I believe that to be true, I don’t have room to list them all. I have roughly 1,000 words; a comprehensive list would require at least 20,000.
But I will try to hit the high spots.
Let’s start with the fact that no amount of groveling praise to governments that ultimately do not have the best interests of the Jewish people at heart (meaning all of them aside from Israel’s) will significantly slow, let alone end, antisemitism.
Government action will also not diminish antisemitism. No antisemite says to himself, “You know, now that the government has a strategy to combat antisemitism, I’m going to stop hating those Jews.”
It’s a lot like the gun issue. Taking guns from responsible citizens does nothing to end criminal activity. The people who are already free of the virus of antisemitism will not be affected by any “strategies,” “plans” or “official definitions.” Therefore, pretending that we owe a government gratitude for merely standing up for our human rights seems almost pathetic.
Let’s take a closer look at Biden’s actual “strategy.”
How can any strategy to combat hatred against our people be remotely effective when it includes, grotesquely, antisemites. The Biden plan includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a “partner.” Do you believe that anything that they are a “partner” in has even a remote chance of being good for the Jewish people?
It’s hard not to laugh, or be absolutely enraged, at the foolishness.
Remember when Congress failed to condemn Ilhan Omar’s overt Jew hatred, but instead condemned multiple types of bigotry, including Islamophobia? Including CAIR as a “partner” in “combating antisemitism” is a similar scenario. The strategy here, too, is not to combat antisemitism, but to keep the majority of Jews as a voting bloc, while also satisfying the progressive wing of the Democratic party.
The plan itself is infested with other examples of why that is so.
The word “Judaism” appears seven times in the paper. “Islamophobia” appears 21 times.
“LGBTQI+” appears seven times, as does “gender.” The woke keyword “equity” appears 10 times.
“Charlottesville” appears four times, which is fine with me, but not in a document that fails to mention Students for Justice in Palestine, BLM, or CAIR itself at all, much less what they actually are: partners in antisemitism.
The paper also fails to mention Islamists, the Iranian regime, the Palestinian Authority, or even the insidious BDS movement.
“Zionism” and “Zionist” are not mentioned at all.
The strategy paper does “embrace” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which does equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. But that definition is NEVER officially adopted.
Pathetic. But to make that fact even worse, the paper “welcomes and appreciates” the Nexus Document, a cowardly screed that fails to equate anti-Zionism to antisemitism. Of course, CAIR, the far left and every other Jew/Israel-hater in the United States is totally happy about a strategy to “combat antisemitism” that leaves the door open to pretending that antisemitism, barely disguised as hatred of Israel, is not actual antisemitism. (A strategy that Jew-haters have been invoking for decades)
Obviously, the “embrace” of the “Nexus Document” is there specifically to ensure that the administration does not lose the support of progressives, and anyone else aligned with extreme Islamist ideology, by actually acknowledging the truth: Any definition of antisemitism that fails to recognize that the Jewish people have EVERY right to live peacefully, securely, and happily in our ancient homeland, in which we are the indigenous people, is not a “definition of antisemitism.” Rather, it defines a basic tenet of antisemites.
The Nexus definition also implies that for antisemitism to be antisemitic, hatred of Jews must use the language of Jew hatred which existed before 1948. I won’t accept that. The creation of the modern State of Israel gave rise to new linguistic techniques created specifically to disguise and obfuscate the same old tropes. There is no difference between medieval peasants accusing Jews of killing children to make matzo and modern liars who claim that Israel murders Arab children.
So once again, instead of taking a strong, undeniable, and obvious stand against antisemitism, we are faced with yet another tepid and meaningless set of words noting every form of racism, rather than the form which is directed specifically at us.
Why would we grovel and scrape to thank this administration for stating the obvious: Racism is bad. Great. Now, what about the Jews?
I have to agree with British columnist Melanie Phillips: “People can’t stand the uniqueness of antisemitism because they can’t stand the uniqueness of the Jewish people.”
Furthermore, failure to take on antisemitism as a purely Jewish problem is a result of this administration having aligned itself with identity politics. According to that absurd ideology, Jews are “white,” and are therefore “privileged,” while the Palestinians are oppressed “people of color.” We are colonizers, while the people who arrived in the land at least 2,000 years after Muslims first stepped foot in it are “indigenous.” It is a complete inversion of truth. In other words: pure evil.
In fact, much of the Biden strategy involves using government diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to “combat” antisemitism. How is that going to happen when so many of the people who create/participate in these programs are themselves antisemitic opponents of Zionism?
A 2021 study by the Heritage Foundation found that 96% of tweets by 741 DEI staff at 65 universities were critical of Israel (while 62% of their tweets were favorable to human rights abusing China). Along those same lines, more of their tweets mentioned (imaginary) Israeli apartheid than anything remotely positive about the Jewish state. The tweets also regularly refer to Israelis as “colonizers” and reference so-called “ethnic cleansing” against Arabs by Jews. I can go on, but anyone who has dealt firsthand with this mentality knows EXACTLY what I am talking about.
Oh, and the first bullet point in the White House’s “fact sheet” about its little plan?
“The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will launch a tour to educate religious communities about steps they can take to protect their houses of worship from hate incidents, such as instituting appropriate security measures, developing strong relationships with other faith communities, and maintaining open lines of communication with local law enforcement.”
So we as Jews are supposed to be grateful that a group which is a well-known Israel-hating organization will take steps to warn “communities” how to avoid “hate incidents”? Great.
Oh, and the assertion that they will tell us how to keep our synagogues safe is revolting. As is the lack of the words “synagogue,” “temple” or “shul.” Not to mention the word “Jewish.” Clearly, any authentic plan to combat antisemitism must involve the places where Jews gather.
Open lines of communication to law enforcement? Has anyone at CAIR ever met a Jew responsible for security at ANY Jewish event (not just those involving synagogues)?
Can we possibly be this naïve? Did we learn anything from the Shoah?
ANYONE who aligns themselves with our enemies, is also an enemy of the Jewish people. Beware of that person/organization.
The only way to combat antisemitism is education, both about Judaism, our history, and Israel. We MUST teach people about our history, Israel’s place in it, and about the religion that makes us Jewish. When we stand up proudly as Jews, people respect us. When we allow our enemies to define how we are to stand up to their hatred, we appear weak. Weakness never leads to victory.
This “strategy to combat antisemitism” is a joke.
Am Yisrael chai.
JOSHUA NAMM is a longtime Jewish community pro, passionate Israel advocate, and co-founder/co-CEO of Moptu, a unique social platform designed specifically for article sharing and dedicated to the principle of free speech.
