Palestinians Beating U.S. Jews Could Be Trump’s Fault, According To Vox
The left-leaning website Vox looked at the explosion of anti-Semitic assaults during the Israel-Gaza conflict and came away with no definitive explanation whatsoever, but hints that blame may lie with followers of former President Donald Trump.
Vox writer Zack Beauchamp, who is Jewish, has noted that “anti-Semitic incidents, ranging from harassment to vandalism to assault, increased by 75 percent during the recent” Israel-Gaza conflict. Despite overheated rhetoric pouring out of certain members of Congress and video footage that unambiguously shows roving bands of assailants waving the Palestinian flag as they target Jewish diners, Vox concludes that it’s positively perplexed about why hate crimes rose during that time.
“Violent anti-Semitism spiked in America during the Israel-Hamas war. And we don’t know why,” says the article’s subheadline.
Authors often do not write their headlines but, in this case, it accurately reflects the content of Beauchamp’s argument.
He begins by acknowledging the undeniable uptick in violence during Israel’s conflict with the terrorist group Hamas.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded that anti-Semitic attacks in the United States surged 75% during the Israel-Gaza conflict. An accompanying graphic of overall “anti-Semitic incidents” shows that such events more than doubled between April 26 and May 23. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that spike was “more drastic and frankly, more dangerous” than during previous Middle Eastern tensions.
But Beauchamp muddies the waters, writing, “What’s less clear is why these incidents are happening.”
“It’s entirely possible that it’s random chance,” he claims.
Beauchamp begins by trying to Fisk the data, asserting that a “well-known problem with the ADL’s data” is its “expansive definition” of anti-Semitism, which includes anti-Zionism.
He cites an article by Mari Cohen in the left-wing Jewish Currents, which blithely shrugs away many of the 193 reports of anti-Semitic incidents the ADL received in the week that hostilities broke out — an increase of one-third in just one seven days.
“Eight entries are cases of vandalism with no explicit connection to Israel/Palestine (like swastikas drawn on a synagogue or building, one of the most common types of incident reported by the ADL),” Cohen wrote.
But these are precisely the sorts of charges leveled against Israel during its retaliation against Hamas’ attack on Jewish civilians.
MSNBC aired “pro-Palestinian” rhetoric which closely echoed former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. MSNBC host Joy Reid sat silently as foreign policy academic Rula Jebreal — whom she introduced as “my friend” — said that “Jewish supremacy is the main goal of Israel [sic] apartheid government.” (Duke wrote a book titled Jewish Supremacism.)
Both public and private sector condemnations of Israel’s war of self-defense grew so grim that four Democratic congressmen wrote a letter to “reject comments from Members of Congress accusing Israel of being an ‘apartheid state’ and committing ‘act[s] of terrorism.’ These statements are antisemitic at their core and contribute to a climate that is hostile to many Jews.”
Rather than draw attention to the incendiary rhetoric of Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others, Vox says the Palestinian beatings of random Jews may be the fault of … President Donald Trump.
Beauchamp writes that the beatings could be “a reflection of an upswing in anti-Semitism that began during the Trump campaign and presidency. There is little doubt that anti-Semitic sentiment in America began spiking in 2016 … most commonly linked to the alt-right’s rise on Trump’s coattails.”
The FBI’s hate crimes statistics show that the number of anti-Jewish attacks have risen since 2016 — returning to the equally high rates of such crimes in the years following 9/11.
Beauchamp also holds out the possibility that America is “becoming more like Europe, where anti-Semitic violence during military conflicts involving Israel routinely rises,” particularly in areas with large Muslim populations. But he says this is “not likely.”
Vox, which has a problematic history of jaundiced Middle Eastern coverage, concludes, “It’s far from clear which, if any, of the three explanations presented above will turn out to be the correct one.”
The article’s conclusion seemed so ludicrous that Ben Domenech hosted a segment about it on Thursday’s episode of “Fox News Primetime.”
His guest, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL), noted that her district “holds the second-largest Jewish community in the United States.”
“We have an immense problem in this country with this democratic socialism that some people within the Democratic Party are peddling to our youth,” she said.
“When you say ‘socialism,’ you’re talking about anti-Semitism in the same phrase, even though it may not be mentioned,” she continued. She added that in Marxist societies like Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, “everybody [who] is a socialist or a communist is anti-Jew[ish].”
Some of history’s worst anti-Semitism took place in Marxist nations, which springs from the secularist philosophy of its founder. Karl Marx, who was ethnically Jewish, spread common anti-Semitic tropes in his monograph “On the Jewish Question”:
What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.
Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.
Instead of considering this legacy of socialism, past and present, the media savaged Congresswoman Salazar.
Beauchamp posted on social media that he was incensed that “two non-Jews in this Fox segment … think they understand anti-Semitism better than I do,” claiming that they “did not appear to actually read the article.”
“You think you can mock my work on anti-Semitism that addresses the very point you claim it doesn’t?” Beauchamp added. “I expect an apology.”
Hey @bdomenech: virtually my entire family was wiped out in the Holocaust. I’ve been harassed in real life for being Jewish.
And you think you can mock my work on anti-Semitism that addresses the very point you claim it doesn’t? In the *first three grafs*?
I expect an apology. pic.twitter.com/4qUmQIf4ZP
— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) June 4, 2021
The problem is not that Domenech and Salazar had the temerity to critique Beauchamp’s work. The problem is that he seemed so focused on absolving members of the House’s democratic socialist caucus of their role in emotionally inciting the people, elevating the severity of the situation on the ground, and flooding left-wing media with hateful tropes activated against peaceful Jewish Americans by enraged mobs.
For that, Beauchamp and Vox owe their readers an apology.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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