Left-wing anti-semitism
Is anti-Semitism a problem or not?
I think so, but I ask because it seems that California's leaders and media largely only care when it's perceived on the right.
But the recent attacks by Hamas against Israel have shown anti-Semitism is alive and well in the Democratic coalition.
Most notably, Democratic Socialists of America and Black Lives Matter affiliates have issued statements of support for Hamas and that is on top of rhetoric from relatively popular Democratic members of Congress, like Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
But let's play a game: What if this was a Republican?
Though some Democrats have denounced support for Hamas, the relative quiet stands in contrast to an incident from 2018, when someone named Patrick Little ran as a Republican for U.S. Senate in California.
Little had no endorsements, no financial support, and was unknown in Republican circles, but when an outlier SurveyUSA poll very early on suggested Little had support from 18 percent of voters, reporters began pointing out Little's “neo-Nazi” leanings and suggested it was part of an alarming trend among Republicans.
“Overt anti-Semites have been slowly creeping into Republican politics in the aftermath of President Trump's successful, populist candidacy, and now one of them has a fighting chance of representing the Republican Party in a Senate race,” wrote Newsweek.
It mattered little that California Republicans had no idea who this guy was when he announced his candidacy (parties have no control over who registers as their voter and runs for office) and had quickly denounced him once they learned who he was, that he'd been barred from entering the California Republican convention and had almost no chance of winning (I say almost because anyone who is on the ballot technically has a chance — past that, he had no chance).
I can't speak to why Little polled so high, except that maybe respondents liked his name.
Of course, he never came close to becoming senator, winning only about one percent (still too high, in my opinion, but again I think it's mostly because of his name).
But if a fringe candidate can draw lots of attention as an alleged symptom of a larger problem, why isn't a bigger story when actual constituents of the Democratic coalition support a terrorist organization like Hamas?
When I say support, I mean support. Black Lives Matter Chicago tweeted a graphic of a paratrooper that said, “I stand with Palestine.”
For context, Hamas terrorists breached the Israeli border with parachutes as part of an
attack that killed around 1,300 people.
The tweet has since been deleted, but some things are hard to take back.
Democratic Socialists of America tweeted its support for Palestine, and while it did say it condemned all killing of civilians, it added a “but,” which is always a bad idea after condemning murder, and asserted that Israel deserved it.