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Prominent Republicans have seized on campus protests to assail what they say is antisemitism on the left. But for years they have mainstreamed anti-Jewish rhetoric.
The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, traveled to Columbia University two weeks ago to decry the “virus of antisemitism” that he said pro-Palestinian protesters were spreading across the country. “They have chased down Jewish students. They have mocked them and reviled them,” he said to jeers from protesters. “They have shouted racial epithets. They have screamed at those who bear the Star of David.”
Former President Donald J. Trump chimed in. President Biden, he wrote on Truth Social, “HATES Israel and Hates the Jewish people.”
Amid the widening protests and the unease, if not fear, among many Jews, Republicans have sought to seize the political advantage by portraying themselves as the true protectors of Israel and Jews under assault from the progressive left.
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Debate rages over the extent to which the protests on the political left constitute coded or even direct attacks on Jews. But far less attention has been paid to a trend on the right: For all of their rhetoric of the moment, increasingly through the Trump era many Republicans have helped inject into the mainstream thinly veiled anti-Jewish messages with deep historical roots.
The conspiracy theory taking on fresh currency is one that dates back hundreds of years and has perennially bubbled into view: that a shady cabal of wealthy Jews secretly controls events and institutions contrary to the national interest of whatever country it is operating in.
They care about Israel, not about Jews specifically. They just want Israel to exist so that the end of the world can happen.
I’ve long suspected many of them love the idea of Israel so they don’t have to deal with Jewish people in their community.
And the fact is that a lot of Zionism does have nationalist undertones
Just “undertones?” How is it anything but 100% explicitly nationalist?
Exactly this. Israel is an ethnostate, and as violently antisemitic as Nazis are, a lot of them see Israel as a prime example of how they think the world should be
Exactly. No ethnoatates. No nationalism of the oppressed nor of the oppressor. We must all stand equal and in solidarity
They just want Israel to exist so that the end of the world can happen.
Bringing me back to me pentecostal days
Cool how the “jews will not replace us” party suddenly cares so much about antisemitism, definitely nothing fishy about that
It’s adorable when they pretend to care about Jews and Muslims simultaneously while being antisemitic Islamophobes