#WTH Open season on Jews in America

"Free Palestine" legitimizes terrorism

Last week, I wrote about the constant drumbeat of Jew hatred and the attendant despair it causes. (Thank you, by the way, for your many kind notes.) As if on cue, the chorus of justifications for the terrorist murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim the week before spawned another attempted terrorist attack. Egyptian illegal alien Mohamed Sabry Soliman tossed two homemade Molotov cocktails at a peaceful march to call for the release of the hostages in Boulder, Colorado, injuring eight, including a Holocaust survivor. He reportedly screamed “Free Palestine” and “End Zionists.”

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the local police chief refused to speculate whether the attack was an act of terrorism, a cautiousness of a piece with the hordes who rush to protect the First Amendment rights of terrorist sympathizers calling for the murder of Jews. The FBI was less politically correct, believing the evidence of their eyes and ears — flames, victims, a march for the hostages, “free Palestine” — that this was indeed a terrorist attack.

To paraphrase the terror-apologia of our United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, this attack did not take place “in a vacuum.” Threats against Jews and “Zionists” — usually another word for Jews — are now commonplace. Nor can they be categorized as a “reaction” to Israel’s war in Gaza. The justification of Hamas’s actions, and the first wave of Jew hatred, broke out before the Israel Defense Forces even entered Gaza.

There have been numerous excellent pieces detailing the orchestration of violence in the United States, sponsored too often by external powers like Qatar and their paid-for minions at American NGOs and Hamas-supporting organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine. And the long and the short of it is that support is paying off. It has created a “context” for attacking Jews in America (and abroad) that has amounted to a license for open season on anyone or anything Jewish, whether Holocaust memorials and museums, Jewish schools, synagogues, Jewish or Israeli restaurants, Jewish neighborhoods, and, of course, Jewish people.

Another tool in the Leftist shed is the claim that “antisemitism is being weaponized” to violate civil rights, excuse Israel, commit “ethnic cleansing”, fill in the blank. As I wrote in April,

The argument that Jews should be quiescent about their own rights, and tolerant of antisemitic terror supporters is reminiscent of Holocaust era arguments about the need for Jews to stay under the radar, to not identify themselves too overtly with the war on Nazism; or better still, for the Jews of Europe to quietly accept their fate rather than stand up and loudly demand international support. Screw that.

Far from wariness over the “weaponization of antisemitism” to defend Jews, we must be up in arms about the literal weaponization of antisemitism, and its transformation from an ideology of hate to an actual terrorist movement.

Certainly, there are some — precious few — who have been horrified to see their righteous anger at Israel morphed into a movement targeting the safety and well-being of Jews. But in the fever swamps of the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) and SJP, not to speak of at Harvard University, violence is not simply tolerated, it has been celebrated and rewarded.

As a result, Jews must now be afraid in America; afraid to wear a Magen David and be “visibly Jewish,” afraid to join protests in support of Jewish hostages, afraid to visit the Holocaust Museum, afraid to take their kids to Jewish schools, afraid to stick a mezuzah on their doors. Just afraid. This fear is exactly what the proponents of violence seek. They want Jews to cower rather than stand up for their rights. They want quiescence from governments like those in Australia, France, Canada, the UK and others who bleat about “Palestine” and are pushing to honor October 7 by recognizing a Palestinian state.

So what should we do? As I wrote before, screw that. Stand up, be proud to be Jewish, support Jews, support Israel’s right to live in peace and security, and be loud and insistent in support of arrests, deportations, prosecutions, and the evisceration of the pro-Hamas caucus everywhere it can be found. Weaponize antisemitism wherever you find it to isolate and name and shame perpetrators, press charges where allowed to set an example, and for God’s sake, take your money away from causes that don’t reflect your values.

Don’t be bullied by contexters and moral relativists. You and I are not seeking carte blanche for the State of Israel to act in violation of norms. Don’t tolerate that accusation, and don’t tolerate the “but” that comes at the end of every sentence condemning the wave of hate. This is about the “again” in “never again,” and if it is to be true, it will require a movement as strong as the haters’. Get to work.