spectator.org
When Fighting Antisemitism Becomes a Spectacle
Confronted by competition in harmony with the festive season, I see a watchdog pressured to be a crowd-puller in a competitive market. I find stopantisemitism.org relying on a gimmick to fight the hate that was the bane of humankind when the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob strode the Holy Land. I read the citation to pick Tucker Carlson as the top candidate for a dubious accolade.
Organizations “bent over backwards to avoid offending the very people we needed to stand up to.”
“From downplaying white supremacy to promoting the antisemitic ‘great replacement’ theory, Carlson has built a career turning extremist dog whistles into broadcast-ready talking points, legitimizing voices that traffic in Holocaust revisionism, conspiracy, and hate.”
The first noteworthy fact is that stopantisemitism.org stole the thunder of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, originator of the annual fanfare. Named after the iconic Holocaust survivor, it long ago began giving crass personalities a medal for “Antisemite of the Year.”
Under the enterprising Rabbi Marvin Hier, SWC spanned seven countries and built two Holocaust centers with the brand name, “Museums of Tolerance.” It took the Rabbi and family members’ six-figure salaries to make certain that the Holocaust would never be forgotten.
If that conveys brazen commercialism, it’s because it is. The milieu was tolerant, and Jews were not threatened. Their worst day since the Holocaust lay ahead. Oct. 7 peeled away the calm to reveal the hardest truth Jews have to face. A second Holocaust is within the realm of possibility.
This gave mega donors the impetus to dip deep. In turn, activists got lured into fighting antisemitism. When a cash cow beckons, you seize the prospect and milk it dry. A political cause is a money trap like no other. Everyone and their aunt is pro-something or anti-something, and no cause quite matches that of being anti-Israel or pro-Israel. They seeded prospects so virile and frenzied as to capture Jewish federations.
Recrimination was not swift enough: vast resources mobilized in the wake of Oct. 7 were already misspent. Heedless of the debacle, raw and rampant antisemitism raged on. Communities that once flaunted their identity but now hide it. Synagogues that opened their doors to newcomers but now interrogate and frisk them. Holocaust reflections that were fuzzy are now in focus. Confidence that it was an aberration has turned to panic that a second one is possible.
Callous enrichment is one thing. The incapacity to tackle antisemitism better next time is another. Nor is that confined to the American community. Israel’s Diaspora Minister squandered his budget on a conference for strategizing how to combat the scourge. The bigwig delegate list dwindled weeks before the event got underway. The problem? Organizers overlooked a not small point: invitees understood the term “antisemitism” differently. Colloquially, they weren’t on the same page. What kind of general would dispatch troops to the front, not knowing if they’d recognize the enemy?
The problem remains unsolved. And the Diaspora remains in turmoil. The bugbear is the divide between legitimate and illegitimate criticism of Israel — if that red line exists in the liberal West where the notion of free speech is sacrosanct. We hear a great deal about the risk of permitting opinions that incite violence. About the cost of putting limits on opinion, we hear little. In any case, governments can hardly be mandated to stop the likes of Nick Fuentes or Candice Owens or Tucker Carlson or Ivy League dons imbuing followers with antisemitic conspiracies.
It doesn’t mean governments are not trying to control “unacceptable” speech. Their device to gag and encumber antisemites — aka “critics of Israel” — is not hi-tech surveillance but a detailed checklist. You tick boxes for determining if the target is an anti-Zionist innocent or an anti-Jew bigot.
If you think you’re not acquainted with that mojo board, think again. It’s the widely adopted “gold standard” IHRA code — the same as gave President Trump the wherewithal to bring academia to book.
Spare a thought for the identikit’s well-meant but misled inventor who never meant it to be used for witch hunts. Kenneth Stern loathes the decisive but divisive tool he developed two decades ago. He “never imagined it would one day serve as a hate speech code.” He meant no more than to “help countries track anti-Jewish bias.” Today, he debunks the “weaponization” of his code to punish “pro-Palestinian” activists, nabbing even Jews.
“People who believe they’re combating hate are seduced by simple solutions to complicated issues. It’s actually harming our ability to think about antisemitism.”
That’s a very germane assessment. It might indeed go to the root of failed attempts to tackle antisemitism: the inability to think about what it means.
When Israel’s minister for antisemitism invited the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt to his conference, he didn’t know that ADL staff had mutinied over Greenblatt adopting the IHRA code. Anti-Zionist to a fault, they were incensed at suddenly becoming blackguard antisemites in terms of the code. Like it or quit, the boss told them.
Yet Greenblatt himself is ambivalent about what is and is not antisemitic. He as good as accused Elon Musk of hating Jews after he compared George Soros to the comic book character, Magneto. For good measure, Musk had claimed that Holocaust survivor George Soros “wants to erode the very fabric of civilization, that Soros hates humanity.” Greenblatt looked foolish when he subsequently cleared Musk of making a “Heil Hitler” salute. For the second time, the ADL’s progressive staff hung the boss out to dry. Who could blame Wikipedia for red-flagging the ADL as unreliable?
For her part, Professor Deborah Lipstadt, President Biden’s “Antisemitism Tsar,” relied on “classic tropes” to declare Musk an antisemite — Musk, admired by Israelis across the board. No wonder antisemites enjoy free rein. Organizations fighting them are at sixes and sevens, “too timid to call Jew-hatred for what it was,” and deliver programs which “bent over backwards to avoid offending the very people we needed to stand up to.”
There is something in Stern’s identikit for everyone not to like. Antisemitism, to take one example, consists of claims long associated with classic antisemitism. “Jews killing Jesus to characterize Israel or Israelis” is one. It was now the turn of Tucker Carlson to be grossly offended. If that’s what antisemitism is, said the podcaster, the New Testament could be banned.
It’s a real circus out there when Meta looks to ban derogatory uses of the word ‘Zionist’ as in, “Zionist rats.” What about “Zionist criminals”? Meta okays the term when people accuse Israel’s military of “war crimes.” The “Antisemite of the year” award puts the lid on it.
Tucker Carlson will lug his award all the way to the bank.
Beneficiaries grown fat sup at the table of the perennial Israel-“Palestine” conflict. Why disturb a state of limbo if it meant no more lucre on tap for combating antisemitism? The podcasting business is brisk, the money big, and the players earnest.
READ MORE from Steve Apfel:
Shepherds Without Swords
Trump Puts the Squeeze on Antisemites. Don’t Let S. Africa Slide.
Will the Crazies of Gaza Beat Swords Into Ploughshares?
Steve Apfel is many things: Economist. Former founder and Director of the School of Management Accounting. Veteran authority on anti-Zionism. Scourge of antisemites. Prodigious author.
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