Recent Anti-Semitism
I don’t think we can end racism—toward Palestinians, or all People of the Global Majority—without also ending anti-Semitism.
The following are two recent incidents of anti-Semitism:
- Seventeen young people and teachers were recently shot and killed at a high school in Florida, USA—a high school that is reportedly forty percent Jewish. The shooter had Nazi symbols on his rifle and had posted anti-Semitic comments on-line; there is speculation that anti-Semitism was a motivating factor in the killings.
Young people at the school are now leading a powerful national gun-control campaign, and they are being attacked. The executive head of the NRA (National Rifle Association) spoke to a conservative audience with not-so-hidden anti-Semitism in his words. He spoke about a plot to destroy American freedom, naming people such as Karl Marx, Bernie Sanders, and George Soros—all Jews. He said that these people think they are smarter than anyone else. (Google Haaretz + shooting + anti-Semitism to read more of the speech.) This is a rehash of conspiracy theories about Jews, and it’s being used by the right [the reactionary forces] to divert attention from the liberation work of the young people.
Nothing about the anti-Semitism connected to the shootings has been mentioned in the U.S. press. I had to read about it in Haaretz, an English Israeli newspaper.
- The Polish government recently decided to arrest anyone who uses the words “Polish death camps” or speaks of Polish responsibility for the Holocaust. Many see this as an attempt to deny what happened to Jews in Poland. A right-wing nationalist movement is trying to divert people’s attention from oppressive policies.
This is anti-Semitism. It is being used more and more in the current period by nationalist governments to divert attention away from oppression. And it’s being completely ignored by the left [the progressive forces], including the media, probably because the left has been steeped in confusion about Jews.
We need to face and discharge about the rise of overt anti-Semitism. We can do this together, and then speak out. Allies can take the lead in speaking out.
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion listfor RC Community members
(Present Time 191, April 2018)