Let’s play who’s an anti-Semite? Or, let’s play who’s the bigger anti-Semite? Or, let’s play which anti-Semites are we going to let slide?
Today’s two contestants are Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and Donald J. Trump, formerly known as the President of the United States of America.
Trump has been spouting anti-Semitic rhetoric and repeating anti-Semitic tropes for a while. The latest came last week. He expressed distress that American Jews were ungrateful toward him. Trump said, “they need to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is too late.” Too late? Too late for what? Does it mean too late before we are replaced?
Trump is no stranger to anti-Semitic statements. Comments about his Jewish lawyers, his Jewish son-in-law. You can Google them.
But some Jews give Trump a pass because of the “what-abouts.”
What about the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, they say, and what about the green lighting of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights? So what if he says some nasty things about us? He’s good for Israel. What about the shiva call to his Jewish lawyer? He’s such a mensch. After all, Trump isn’t the only President of the United States who has said bad things about Jews. Harry Truman said Jews were “very, very selfish” and he often privately referred to them as “kikes.” But what about his recognition of the State of Israel in 1948? And what about his close friend and business partner, you know, Eddie Jacobson, the Jewish haberdasher.
Richard Nixon said Washington is “full of Jews” and “most Jews are disloyal.” But what about his Jewish Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger? What about the way he saved Israel during the Yom Kippur War by airlifting desperately needed weapons to stave off defeat.
We have to look at the bigger picture, the apologists say.
No difference when it comes to celebrity anti-Semites.
Let me ask you. How many of you still watch Holocaust denier Mel Gibson’s movies? How many of you read avowed anti-Semite Roald Dahl’s books to your children? Do you still listen to Roger Waters, the guy who compares Israel to Nazi Germany? The moon isn’t the only thing with a dark side.
Here’s the deal. If you condemn Ye, and by all means you should, you cannot make excuses for Donald Trump. You can’t pick and choose your Jew haters.
If you have even a modicum of fear over the rise of anti-Semitism in this country, you can’t look the other way when Trump threatens us. If you worry about the future of your children and grandchildren as Jewish Americans, you can’t write off Ye’s hate speech as the rantings of a nut job.
The former host of the Daily Show Jon Stewart, just said it was “mind-blowing” how easily anti-Semitic hatred “flows from people’s mouths.”
It flows, it gushes, from the mouths of people who are in the public spotlight, who command attention with tens of thousands of devoted social media followers, It flows easily because we don’t slap them down hard and fast. The anti-Semitic crap that flows out of the mouths of people like Donald Trump and Kanye West, needs to be shut down tight. Don’t tell me West is deranged and needs help. Don’t tell me about Trump and the what-abouts.
When some celebrities spew their hatred, we show them how enlightened we are, how broadminded and understanding we are, by sending them to tour our Holocaust museums. We send them to rabbis for an education on what it means to be a Jew hater. They apologize and we move on. Problem solved!
When people in power snicker and made snide and not so snide comments about Jews we say, but what about…? Or we keep our mouths shut. Or, we support them!
No, cancel them! Stop playing wack-a-mole with malevolance.
If they claim Jews are all powerful and controlling, then let’s show them. Put pressure on their sponsors and supporters. Boycott their movies, concerts, and books. Vote against them. Tell other politicians if you accept the Jew haters’ support, you will forfeit our support. If you don’t condemn them, we will condemn you.
It’s coming down to this. You’re either for us or against us. You can’t be a little bit pregnant and you sure as hell can’t be a little bit anti-Semitic. Not anymore, it’s too dangerous.
2 thoughts on “DJT & Ye”
Toda Roba. Very well stated
Tough one. I take issue with some of your points that you mixed together.
1. You do have to look at the bigger picture, in cases such as Truman and Nixon.
2. Trump is in a separate category – he often shoots off his mouth before consulting his brain or the needed brains of others. We must guard against his comments and actions which truly endanger our democracy. Then there are his other of the cuff comments most people have learned, or should learn, to ignore.
3. We should act out, in whatever legal way possible, against the mean-spirited. There should be enough Jewish and good Christian lawyers to jam up whackos like West. BTW, I don’t excuse his inarticulate comments on the basis of his scrambled brain. And Whoopi should have known better, to name a small few.
4. It wasn’t until Henry Ford II made amends for his father that anyone in my family bought a Ford. I dont watch, read, or listen to Gibson, Dahl, or Waters, etc. They can all …
5. You do have to take on the individual offender rather than try to educate a whole society. In general, people don’t like to be instructed by a self-authorized person with an agenda. They have to learn from favorable experiences. More work for us but that’s life.