Culturally respectable racism

Michie · May 4, 2024

Why aren’t pundits who bashed evangelicals as racists more vocal about rampant anti-Semitism on the left?

The scenes that have been playing out on elite American campuses—scenes of the most explicit racism—are a national disgrace. Of course, in the United States, people have a right to public protest. And while I am pro-Israel in the current conflict, it does not seem irrational to me that others might wish to support the Palestinians and criticize aspects of the Israeli war strategy. But the protests are not merely supportive of Palestinians. They are supportive of Hamas. And they are targeted not at Israelis in particular but at the Jewish population in general. Such protests are racist, at least according to the traditional definition before folks like Ibram Kendi and the BLM activists of this world managed to twist the term to suit their own interests.

Some may wish to argue that support for Hamas is not anti-Semitic but rather anti-Zionist. They will likely claim that the 2017 Hamas charter identified the problem as “Zionists” rather than “Jews” for this reason. But that is a specious dodge. When you think that the state of Israel is the result of a Jewish conspiracy, the terms become basically interchangeable. And when events on elite college campuses in the USA have created an environment where Jewish students are under threat simply because of their Jewishness, Israeli military action would seem only to be the pretext and not the true cause of the hatred.

I recently had the pleasure of chairing a discussion on anti-Semitism at Grove City College with two leading Jewish intellectuals, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Yeshiva University and Devorah Goldman of the Tikvah Fund. Both described growing up in an America where they experienced no anti-Semitism. Both also reflected on the immediate exultant response on campuses in the United States to the Oct. 7 attacks. These responses could not be interpreted as criticism of Israeli military action since none had yet taken place. They were celebrations of the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Jewish civilians. No doubt many of the celebrants would regard any American who deadnames a man presenting as a woman, or who refuses to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, or who believes in any limits on abortion as opposing basic human rights and meriting severe punishment. Those who kidnap, rape, and murder Jewish women and children, not so much.

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