I have mixed feelings about posting this. On one hand, I’m so upset, I feel I must: “qui tacet consentit” (“who remains silent gives consent”). Yet I’m also concerned because I wonder if I’ll get hate mail for this.
But being Jewish, and of the progressive persuasion, it’s very alarming to see the hate conspiracies of alt-right being so easily assimilated by the people I thought were my side. I’ve been reading about incidents— sometimes merely paragraphs in larger stories, about how attacks on Jewish students from those on the “liberal” side have doubled, because they support Israel. Or simply because they’re Jewish, which means they might — gasp — support Israel, so there.
Now, as we progressives know, Israel has many problems. I belong to J Street, a progressive Zionist (Zionist in the original meaning; i.e., that Israel has a right to exist, not the Hamas/BDS meaning it has taken on, that of expansionist). J Street was founded by an Israeli, and it works with Jews and Arabs to fight for social justice for Palestinians, as well as for an end to the right-wing expansionist settlements that Netanyahu and his ilk are creating. The idea is that a two-state solution is not only the best way forward for the Palestinians, but for the Israelis as well. I’ve always thought there could be a wonderful synergy in a Palestinian nation and an Israeli nation working together side-by-side. And in a weird way, these two groups define each other. It’s too bad that neither Hamas nor Israel wants that to happen.
But neither is this the vision for the region that is growing on campuses or in other institutions in the West. There is a rapidly ballooning cadre of liberals who hate Israel the same way that the right hate Hillary Clinton. An incandescent hatred that seems disproportionate in the context of so many other, truly monumental atrocities coming out of the world on a daily basis. Children executing prisoners in Syria? Not a problem for the Israel haters. ISIS burning fleeing sex slaves alive? Nope. Won’t bring them out into the streets. Rape, murder, starvation caused by Boko Haram? No comment. The silence is deafening.
Yet these same haters lap up conspiracy theories about Israel, and often the Jews, in the same way right wingers unquestioningly accept that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster. Theories I used to see appearing in the rabid right wing camp (think Trump’s new leaders), are becoming more accepted, often without question, by the good guys, my guys. The CT that the Mossad was the real perpetrator of 9/11 (just Google it) used to be a right wing thing. This in spite of the fact that according to the 9/11 Report, the Mossad was actually one of the foreign intelligence agencies that issued a warning about the coming threat in August 2001. But now, there are “liberal” educators who proclaim this theory as fact; anyone who tries to argue is a fascist Zionist, a Palestinian-hating stooge, The Enemy. There is a Jewish side to Israel’s history, but that is being suppressed, to the point where the whole history (for example, the Palestinian leader Al Husseini's support for the Nazis) is slowly being erased. I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t safer to be Jewish in the Deep South than in the the liberal colleges.
Anyway, I’ve been sickened and disheartened by reading this accumulating filth over the past few years. It feels like a betrayal to me. I suppose it was naive to believe that the people whose world view I shared could be as hateful and intolerant as the Dark Side; as enamored of and as morally uplifted by their hate. Now the Light Side seems a few shades darker. But I’ve kept quiet. It was this article that finally did it for me. Maybe it was just time for me to speak out. Maybe it’s time for a lot of people to speak out, while they still can. When the extreme right and extreme left start sharing the same mythology and the same hatreds, something wicked this way comes.