Democrats using anti-Semitism as political bullet

OPINION:

The White House just announced it will be hosting an event this week for Jewish leaders to gather and discuss recent acts and rhetoric of anti-Semitic nature.

That’s a shrouded way of announcing the next leftist tactic to target and take down Donald Trump.

If officials with this administration — if members of the Democrat Party — truly wanted to root out anti-Semitism and help the Jewish people in America and abroad, they would look inward. Like everything else, on matters of anti-Semitism, Democrats accuse others of that which they themselves are guilty.

“The roundtable,” The Hill wrote, “will take place amid growing concerns about a rise in anti-Semitism, sparked largely by former President Donald Trump hosting the rapper Ye and Nick Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier, for dinner at [Mar-a-Lago].”

Sparked largely by Trump?

Let’s be serious. 

Jews have been fighting hate and aggression and persecution and anti-semitic attacks for a very long time, long before Donald Trump hosted his dinner, long before Donald Trump was even born, in fact. Can you say Holocaust? Can you say Nazi Party?

“Jewish Hate For 2000+ Years,” SimpleToRemember.com wrote in one partial headline. 

Trump’s dinner is just the platform by which the left can now pin anti-semitism on him and ding, once more, his run for the White House, 2024, hoping voters will forget that hey, this is the guy who so loved the Jewish people and so respected the Israelis he successfully moved the U.S. Embassy to Israel to Jerusalem; he successfully forged the Abraham Accords; he successfully pulled from the disastrous, dangerous Iran nuke deal that would have set Israel — and America — and the free societies of the world — on a perilous path of vulnerability to terrorists.

Democrats, on the other hand?

Rep. Ilhan Omar has made so many anti-semitic remarks one of her fellow congressional members, Rep. Gregory Seube from Florida, introduced a resolution entitled, “Condemning the anti-Semitic comments of Representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota.” Meanwhile, Democrats do this: “Pelosi passes watered-down condemnation after Omar’s anti-Semitic tweets,” The New York Post wrote in March of 2019. And this: “House Democrats fail to condemn anti-Semitism, don’t rebuke Rep. Ilhan Omar,” The Associated Press wrote that same month. And this: “Democrats allow anti-Semitism to spread with their weak resolution,” The Hill wrote, also that same month.

There’s more.

In mid-2019, headlines rocked over Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s comments on a “Skullduggery” podcast that went like this: “There’s a kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports. I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust …” she said.

Facing much-deserved fire for the remarks, Tlaib dug in deeper.

“Rashida Tlaib stands by Israel and Holocaust comments amid criticism,” CNN wrote.

In 2021, it was Tlaib plus anti-semitism again.

“Jewish leaders condemn Tlaib’s ‘antisemitic dog whistle’ in recent comments,” The Times of Israel wrote. What were those comments? She said to Democratic Socialists of America in reference to the behind-scenes exploitation of “the rest of us,” from Gaza to Detroit, that “if you open the curtain and look behind the curtain, it’s the same people that make money and, yes they do, off of racism, off of these broken policies. There is someone there making money.” 

Then there was this, in October — right before elections: “The Jewish Democratic Council of America invoked Nazi imagery in an ad encouraging voters to support Democrats,” Forward reported.

It’s not just Dem pols.

The Dem pols’ water carriers in the media have their own anti-Semitic bents as well.

In April and May of 2019, The New York Times ran these two headlines: “Times Apologizes for Publishing Anti-Semitic Cartoon” and “Times Disciplines Editor and Cancels Cartoon Contract Over Anti-Semitic Drawing” — actions that only came after a massive outcry from the public. Meanwhile, how many times has the perennial and openly anti-Semitic Linda Sarsour, along with several of her similarly anti-Semitic colleagues, been granted media platforms as so-called voices of reason on matters tied to women’s rights and cultural and social issues?

“Women’s March Roiled by Accusations of Anti-Semitism,” The New York Times wrote in December of 2018, one story of several at the time that criticized the group’s organizers — Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory — for their public remarks that included an open embrace of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Mallory, for example, called Farrakhan on social media “the GOAT,” or “greatest of all time.”

The list of leftists’ roles in advancing anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic narratives continues. 

But it’s Trump’s dinner that is moving the Democrats to now act?

“We need to be very, very clear and condemn … this type of antisemitism,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, in the context of responding to entertainer Ye’s anti-Semitic remarks, Politico wrote. “And that’s what you’re going to continue to hear from this president.”

Biden, meanwhile, responded with a tweet: “Silence is complicity.”

It’s true. Silence on anti-Semitism is complicity.

Now if only Democrats would call out anti-Semitism as it happens, and take strong steps to counter anti-Semitism as it unfolds, as it involves members of their own leftist community, instead of waiting for a politically expedient time that coincides with anti-Semitic messages that can be exploited against Trump. If only Democrats would take that statement and apply it to themselves. 

But Democrats, sadly, abysmally, historically, seem only to care most about the fate of the Jewish people when there are political points that can be scored.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE  or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.