Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 27, 2024

Is it still okay to Punch a Nazi? Im asking for a friend. In fact, Im asking for many friends who watched those violent protests outside a synagogue in Los Angeles over the weekend and wondered to themselves if that old left-wing slogan about walloping bigots still holds. If it was acceptable to punch alt-right Jew-haters back in the 2010s, then why not the keffiyeh-wearing variety of today who taunt Jews at their very place of worship?

What a thin excuse for mobbing a synagogue

Punch a Nazi was the cry of every self-styled anti-fascist a few years ago. It was mostly bluster none of these coddled, vegan kids of privilege was really going to raise a fist to a Proud Boy or even one of those alt-right loudmouths whod turn up on campus to make fun of feminism. But they sure liked saying they would. In response to the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, antifa counterprotesters chanted: Punch a Nazi in the mouth!

Where are these big talkers now? Where are these progressives who were so horrified by the Unite the Right slogan of Jews will not replace us that they threatened to smack anyone who uttered it? Why are they not now puffing up their thin chests in response to the new breed of protester who doesnt only say disgusting things about the Jews but actually turns up to their temples to mock and terrify them with talk of intifada?

Thats the thing: its the old antifa types who are doing this. Yesterdays self-styled defenders of Jews are todays persecutors of Jews. The Nazi-punchers have become the Nazis. They had better hope their old rallying cry doesnt still apply, otherwise they might need to pound their own faces.

To be clear, I dont want to see anyone punched outside a synagogue. But then, I dont want to see protest of any kind outside a synagogue. What happened in LA at the weekend was horrifying. It took place at the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish area of Pico-Robertson. Pro-Palestine protesters turned up with Palestine flags. They chanted about intifada. One was heard saying, There is only one solution intifada revolution.

Lets be clear about what this was: the intimidation of Jews masquerading as political protest. The protesters said they picketed the synagogue because a real estate event was taking place inside, at which people were browsing houses for sale in Israel. They were bartering in stolen land, the keffiyeh crowd insisted. What a thin excuse for mobbing a synagogue. The fact is this: if you are screaming at Jews as they enter their house of worship, you are not one of the good guys.

In fact, you are reminiscent of some of the worst guys in history. To holler at Jews about intifada eight months after an intifada claimed the lives of more than a thousand Jews in Israel is Jew-baiting, plain and simple. It is cruelty, not activism. It is more a mini-pogrom than an act of protest. If being progressive now means rubbing Jews noses in an act of apocalyptic violence that claimed the lives of a thousand of their co-religionists, then I guess Im not progressive anymore.

The gathering at the Adas Torah synagogue was worse than anything the old alt-right did. Yes, those hard-right edgelords and neo-Confederates who were big in the 2010s were an enemy of moral decency. They were anti-women, anti-black and anti-Jewish. The neo-fascists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017 chanted openly anti-Semitic slogans.

But they did not start actual, physical fighting outside synagogues, leading to the grim sight of Jews with bloodied faces in the city of Los Angeles in 2024. No, it was the left that did that. A left which, bizarrely, seems to have thrown its lot in with Hamas. Which seems intent on hounding Jews. Antifa now feels, well, fa.

It feels to me that there is insufficient outrage over the intimidation of Jews in LA. The anti-racists are silent. Millennial leftists for whom Charlottesville was a radical awakening seem nonplussed by the horrendous events at the Adas Torah. Perhaps Jew-taunting is okay so long as you wear a keffiyeh while youre doing it. Clearly thats where the alt-right went wrong.

President Joe Biden has condemned the protest at the synagogue. It was appalling, unconscionable and anti-Semitic, he said. It is good to hear these strong words. But one cannot help but wonder why he hasnt devoted himself to rooting out this modish, leftish anti-Semitism, like he did with the alt-right anti-Semitism of the 2010s. In response to the Unite the Right rally, Biden promised to combat the venom and violence of this new hatred and save the soul of our nation. And todays Jew-hating? Will you go to war with that, too?

Anti-Semitism is reaching crisis levels in America and Europe. Attacks on Jews have shot up. Synagogues have been mobbed and graffitied. Weve seen pro-Palestine protesters hunting for Zionists on the New York subway and marchers in London demanding further jihad against the Jewish State. It seems one pogrom wasnt enough. Its time we got serious very serious about this hatred that hides itself in the Palestine colours.

See original here:

Why do some anti-fascists have a problem with Jews? - The Spectator

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