David Duke, Ilhan Omar and the Three Lenses of Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism comes in a variety of colors and creeds. The most commonly called out in the media is alt-right White supremacists. The mascot for these Jew-haters is David Duke, a leader in the Ku Klux Klan who was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1989 to 1992. His antisemitism combines race, religion and politics as White, Christian and Conservative into a singular orientation of “White supremacy.”

Antisemitism is found in the other extreme but often viewed in three distinct lenses: Black, Muslim and Leftist. Many notable anti-Semites easily check off one or two of the boxes such as Louis Farrakhan (Black and Muslim), Linda Sarsour (Muslim and Leftist) and Roger Waters (Leftist). These anti-Semites often defy the neat caricature of David Duke on the right but the trifecta can best be painted as Ilhan Omar, a Black Muslim Somali-American who is serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota.

The asymmetry of the amalgam on one side (White+Christian+Right) and the dissected anti-Semites on the other (Black/Muslim/Left) creates a number of issues in confronting baseless hatred of groups.

Group Hate. There is an easy understanding that not all Blacks or Muslims or Progressives hate Jews. People are evaluated on the basis of their statements and actions, not by the inherent traits of their persons. However, the same cannot be said of the amalgam painted on the right in which many people view White Christian Conservatives as White supremacist racists and anti-Semites unless proven otherwise. The portrayal of the alt-right is that of the establishment patriarchy, of smug White men of privilege who harbor hate. Many people jump to a conclusion that a White Republican is a racist – or as Hillary Clinton said, “a deplorable” – by default. They therefore quickly harbor their own hate for such persons.
Undeserved Absolution. The converse is that the Black anti-Semites as well as Muslims, Leftists and women are given a pass as they are considered the persecuted minorities. People seek to either ignore or excuse their Jew-hatred (Blacks kill Jews because of gentrification; Muslims hate Jews because they control Muslim holy land). But ugly racism and antisemitism are noxious from any source and the shields assembled by progressive defenders are undeserved.
Smug Self-Righteousness. Knee-jerk reactions to hating White Christians as racists and absolving Blacks, Muslims and Leftists goes beyond stupidity. It actively places a person in the very same camp of racists and anti-Semites that they seek to distance themselves from, by participating in group hatred OF Conservatives and encouraging group hate FROM Progressives. Wrapping the bile in smug self-righteousness only makes these haters more blind and unable to change.

The liberal media fosters these flawed appraoches.

Recently, The New Yorker covered the book “White Too Long,” with an opening:

“In a 2019 nationwide survey, eighty-six per cent of white evangelical Protestants and seventy per cent of both white mainline Protestants and white Catholics said that the “Confederate flag is more a symbol of Southern pride than of racism”; nearly two-thirds of white Christians over all said that killings of African-American men by the police are isolated incidents rather than part of a broader pattern of mistreatment; and more than six in ten white Christians disagreed with the statement that “generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.”

For the magazine and book, the poll analyzed White Christians. It coupled race with religion and concluded that not reaching the morally appropriate conclusions of the author about the state of upward mobility for Blacks and agreeing that there is systemic racism in police departments marked this group as overwhelmingly racist.

Yet the magazine and most liberal media wrote NOTHING about the ADL polls of 2014 and 2015 that showed that Muslim countries are almost completely antisemitic and that in non-Muslim countries, Muslims are three to five times more likely to be anti-Semites than Christians. The ADL polls questions were also not so vague as those posited in “White Too Long”: the respondents said that Jews have too much power and too much money and only care about their own. These were direct and clear sentiments of Jew-hatred by Muslims, not inferred racism as was done for White Christians. If anything, the media did the very opposite of giving weight to the study, as New York magazine doubted the entirety of the study in an article called “The ADL’s Flawed Anti-Semitism Survey.”

But basing White Christians in the media is noble. The author of “White Too Long” was featured in NBCNews, The Atlantic, NPR and The Washington Post. CNN covered the book and led that these White Christian racists are all supporters of President Donald Trump. With the amalgam of Whites+Christians+Rightists as racists complete, it is easy to add antisemitism to the mix.

Society has reached a particularly bizarre point where a person’s inherent traits are the marks of being a racist and anti-Semite as well as being incapable of being a racist and anti-Semite.

Whites are inherently racist, or at a minimum benefit from a system of racism, while Blacks cannot be racists as they have no power
Christians are not taught love but hate, while Muslims have a different set of values which we simply don’t understand
Conservatives’ focus on capitalism is cold and ripe for exploitation, while progressives’ orientation towards empathy precludes baseless hatred

Intersectionality has made all Whites and Christians and Conservatives evil both individually and collectively, while it has simultaneously granted perfect absolution to Blacks, Muslims and Progressives.

This modern formulation is pure nonsense but is becoming the lifeblood of the Democratic Party. It has made them blind to the mainstreaming of anti-Semites in their midst while making it impossible to work in a bi-partisan manner on a wide range of issues.

All people must consider others based on their actions and comments, not their race, religion, gender or political party. As such, people should despise Ilhan Omar as much as they hate David Duke because Jew-hatred is not the sole dominion of a single type.