by Eugene Walker
Freedom For All Passover Seder on the Capitol lawn in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2024. Photo: Diane Krauthamer, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Trump Administration has weaponized anti-Semitism. It is using it as a cover for:
* Suppressing protest and dissent by university students and activists against Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza.
* Gestapo ICE agents searching for, arresting and moving to deport foreign students and even non-citizen Green Card holders who may have written an article, put a post on social media, or taken part in a protest supporting Palestinian rights.
* Attacking major universities, for supposedly allowing anti-Semitism to flourish on their campuses, but actually seeking to punish and perhaps destroy universities as centers for democratic thought and education.
PRO-ISRAEL ANTI-SEMITISM
All this is ironic when you consider that at the same time that Trump and his MAGA cronies are doing these actions in the name of rooting out anti-Semitism, they cannot resist fomenting their own. Thus:
* Trump in the runup to the presidential election spoke of “good” Jews who voted for him and “bad” Jews who voted for the Democrats and “hate” Israel.
* His buddies, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, both have been videoed giving a Nazi salute, though both denied it.
* FBI head Kash Patel frequently participates in events and podcasts with anti-Semitic racists like the Holocaust denier Stew Peters. In fact, the MAGA movement is infested with raving anti-Semites, who are so pervasive in it that Christopher Rufo, a Trumpist, warned that MAGA has an “antisemitic influencer problem.”
* Like many other Trumpists, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who blamed California wildfires on “Jewish space lasers,” frequently blames protests and social problems on George Soros or the Rothschild family, both of whom are code words for an imaginary Jewish conspiracy.
* The deadliest attack on a Jewish community in U.S. history, at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, was perpetrated by a white nationalist pushed over the edge by the anti-immigrant hatred sowed by Trump.
* Pro-Israeli anti-Semitism has come to the fore. This is both a Trump-MAGA-ultra-right phenomenon and an ultra-right European party one. In the U.S., various Christian nationalists proclaim their Zionist credentials while at the same time criticizing American Jews as being liberal, particularly at universities. In fact non-Zionist and anti-Zionist critics of Israel, including Jews(!), are proclaimed anti-Semites.
The right-wing Heritage Foundation developed Project Esther, supposedly a strategy to combat anti-Semitism. In reality it is a program of Christian Nationalists who try to cover up their non-Jewishness under the Old Testament name “Esther.” It aims to suppress demonstrations opposed to the genocide in Gaza and attack universities where protests against Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank occur—another weaponization of anti-Semitism.
AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, is another organization that weaponizes anti-Semitism as a way to suppress dissent against Israel in the U.S.
In Europe a number of extreme right-wing nationalist parties practice pro-Israel anti-Semitism. France’s National Rally, Poland’s PiS (both anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim), proclaim their pro-Israel stance as a shield against charges of being neo-Nazis in a Europe shaped by the legacy of the Holocaust.
Meanwhile Vice-President Vance and Elon Musk have proclaimed their admiration for the AfD, a right-wing German nationalist party that is anti-immigrant and particularly anti-Muslim. It too is “pro-Israel” while at the same time has links to white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
LONG, UGLY HISTORY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Anti-Semitism, expressed as hatred of Jews, has a long history, particularly in Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries, as well as in the U.S. It is not alone an historical question, but still a reality in many parts of the world. No doubt a small minority within the massive protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and the West Bank harbor anti-Semitic sentiments. However, the weaponization of anti-Semitism is being fomented and practiced in the U.S. and Europe by Trumpism, the MAGA movement, certain establishment Jewish organizations, Netanyahu-supporting organizations in Israel including Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, and extreme right-wing parties in Europe. They have little or nothing to do with supporting Jews. For these groups, Jewishness is defined by the degree to which a person is a supporter of Israel, its genocidal war, and its far-right government of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
In truth, such weaponization of anti-Semitism can endanger Jews, for it obscures the line between false, weaponized anti-Semitism, and the very real anti-Semitism that exists today and that must be fought.