Français
Español
English
Portuguese
This isn’t 1938 Germany, but there is ample evidence that Jews need to be more wary than ever and more mindful of Israel’s indispensable role in assuring the future security of the Jewish people.
Last month, I wrote about Democratic voters who seemed to have no problem supporting electoral candidates with inarguable histories of venomous anti-Semitic expressions and activities .
Last week, I wrote about the constant drip-drip of anti-Semitic acts and pronouncements and their cumulative effect on the Jewish psyche.
Today, allow me to address one other manifestation of an ever-worsening anti-Semitic environment, and that is the academia-media alliance which not only generally fails to properly address the issue but in fact exacerbates it. I won’t rehash the well-earned criticism of the interminable anti-Israel stories, editorials and op-ed pieces emanating from such media stalwarts as the New York Times and the Washington Post, nor should it be necessary to cite, once again, the overwhelmingly anti-Israel atmosphere that permeates western academia.But both phenomena were in plain sight this week when Marc Lamont Hill, a frequent CNN contributor, called for the annihilation of Israel in a speech before the United Nations (a United Nations which, by the way, cheered his comments but that’s a whole other story).
Surprisingly, CNN did the right thing and fired Mr. Hill (surprising, given CNN’s continued employment of Al Sharpton, another notorious anti-Semite), but what to think of a respected academic who felt free to create a fictitious back-story of a Palestine that never existed and to unashamedly express support for genocide with seemingly no fear of recriminations or repercussions from his media employers? Can anyone picture such an event taking place even just 10 years ago without an immediate outcry from all quarters (not just from Jews) followed by near-instant censure and termination? Yes, Mr. Hill was in fact fired by CNN, but not one major non-Jewish/Israeli media outlet could be bothered to denounce the hateful utterings of Mr. Hill.
Would anybody like to hazard a guess as to how many newspaper columns and television segments would have been overflowing with outrage had a prominent academic made analogously offensive comments about African-Americans or women or gays?
The fact of the matter is that anti-Semitism is no longer restricted to a miniscule, out-of-the-mainstream segment of the population. It is out there, in your face, almost every single day, perhaps best exemplified by the media’s yawning indifference to the vile anti-Semitic tropes uttered by prominent political figures such as Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Keith Ellison, Leslie Cockburn, Scott Wallace, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez et al.
This isn’t 1938 Germany, but there is ample evidence that Jews need to be more wary than ever and more mindful of Israel’s indispensable role in assuring the future security of the Jewish people. We need to stand up for ourselves because we certainly can’t count on the media or academics or politicians confronting and condemning anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments.
