We need to talk about the GOP's rising antisemitism
TAT readers,
I hope that everyone is enjoying this holiday season, regardless of which holiday or holidays, that you celebrate. The beauty of America is that we all get to celebrate as we please, in our great, “melting pot” of humanity. This also means that we can share in the celebratory spirit of the season with other faiths or not at all. It’s up to each individual to do as they please, without fear of criticism or threats. Well, at least that’s how it is supposed to work in America.
Tragically in our current times, the folks running our country believe that only their Christian Nationalist beliefs matter. This is about as un-American as it gets, as explained in the Establishment Clause of our First Amendment as part of our Bill of Rights. How do we know that the Republicans don’t give a damn about the rest of our beliefs… because they said so in their Project 2025 strategy to convert our nation of broad constitutional rights into a Christian Nationalist theocracy. This is part of the reason for today’s essay.
"The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion." - The Establishment Clause - LII, Legal Information Institute - Cornell
The dramatic rise in antisemitism nationally, has become a painful and very dangerous affront to the American Jewish community. The word “antisemitism” is now used in two primary ways in America. First, it is a dishonest rallying cry for the GOP’s assault on universities where pro-Palestinian protests occurred. Then there’s the way that honest, educated Americans use it to describe the behavior of those who discriminate against Jews, via their words and increasingly violent and coercive actions.
Our civil rights belong to all of us and cannot be revoked, ignored or challenged by anyone unless they are attempting to legislate and pass, another amendment to our constitution. Like nearly everything else this administration does, promoting antisemitism out of one side of their mouths while claiming dishonestly to be fighting it, is both unconstitutional and/ or illegal. Words and their definitions matter, no matter how much the GOP agenda assigns aberrant definitions to a wide variety of words and phrases. Ironically, the overwhelming majority of those who still vote Republican, have internalized the false meanings. Today we’ll try and set things straight.
Onward
My firsthand experience with antisemitism
In 1976, two years after joining the Army, I married a Jewish woman who was among the first 5 women assigned to my Army unit. She had been born in Israel and her parents moved to Canada when she was less than a year-old. After her family relocated to the Los Angeles area when she was nine or ten years old, she settled into being an American and after a year of college, she joined the US Army. She didn’t become a naturalized US citizen for another 20 years after leaving the Army.
After our Army enlistments were up, it would be another 6 years until we had children and in Judaism, children are considered the faith of their mother. For this reason, we kept a Jewish household. I taught myself to read, write and speak Hebrew and studied voraciously to ensure that as my children’s father, I could support their early understanding of their religion. We didn’t ignore other faiths and certainly celebrated Christmas with my parents and my side of the family often. There were and still are no religious barriers between my children and other faiths. My middle daughter, now lives in northern Israel and I have visited there, including sojourns into the West Bank, where prior to the First Intifada, Jews and the Arabs in the West Bank got along very nicely.
At home in the LA area, I began to experience antisemitism directed towards Jews for the first time. Although I knew about antisemitism growing up as the son of a government and history teacher, experiencing it firsthand, came as a shock. Learning to deal with what Jews had experienced for millennia, gave me a glance at the inhumanity of some Americans. That inhumanity has grown to dangerous heights in the Trump/ MAGA era, but I will address this later in this essay.
In the meantime and during my twenty eight year marriage, my life with Israeli-American in-laws, many of their friends were Holocaust survivors, with the evil tattoos from the concentration camps still on their forearms. The privilege of getting to know those friends who’d survived the most horrific attempt at genocide, taught me in painful detail, just how evil, aggressive bigotry of any kind could be. In those days, I was a custom builder in the Los Angeles area and more than half of my clients hailed from the Middle East, Iran, North Africa and more. Some were Israeli and the rest Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian, Iranian and smatterings of other communities as well and represented all of the faiths organic to the region. All were naturalized citizens, regardless of their background and demonstrated the same patriotic traits of US citizens born here in the US. They were subjected to bigotry as well.
The ugly side of some Americans that are so heavily biased against immigrants, gave rise to term many citizens of other nations call such Americans when they are abroad, “ugly Americans.” Raised by fully unbiased parents, I could never understand why a nation of immigrants could treat the latest crop of immigrants with such hostility. I and my family occasionally would bear the brunt of such ugly bigotry. To this very day, I can still be fairly agitated when viewing such un-American behavior. The current administration and their party are proud to wear such bigotry in public, no matter how much they claim otherwise. Their policies and actions clearly demonstrate that antisemitism is welcome in today’s GOP. Today’s GOP is the precise opposite of American values.
The point of my personal story is that, I know exactly what antisemitism looks and feels like when I’m the receiving end. The last thing that I will add to my personal experiences is that like my father who studied “comparative religion” during his Masters program, I too have a deep and respectful passion for studying other faiths and cultures. My experiences in LA, gave me great insight for when I went back to the Army after 9-11 and spent the next year in Baghdad.
Ironically, Iraq until the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, had one of the oldest and most sophisticated Jewish populations in the world. Jews had lived in relative security in Iraq for 2,500 years. After all surrounding Arab nations attacked Israel the moment it was declared a state, Jewish communities in Iraq were forced out due to rapidly rising antisemitism. The Arabs lost the war, but most haven’t stopped trying since 1948. To this day, Iraqi Jews cannot return. This expulsion came only three years after the end of WW II, where Jewish genocide by Germany, claimed six million Jewish lives. The spectrum of antisemitism runs from verbal insults to genocide. This is why we must be so very careful when antisemitism raises its ugly head.
Now, both the right and elements of the far left wield antisemitism as a weapon against both Israel and Jews living in the Diaspora. Both do so differently, but the end result is the same. This provides the perfect segue for explaining how both sides embrace antisemitism in the Trump era. First up, let’s talk about the American right’s antisemitism.
Trump’s antisemitic rhetoric has long been a cornerstone of his far-right outreach. In the Trump era, the GOP and Trump speak out of both sides of their mouths regarding antisemitism. On one side, the administration claims its abuse of some of America’s finest universities, is about protecting Jews from antisemitism. On the other, the antisemitism in the GOP ranks, has grown dangerously. Who can forget Trump’s defense of those marching to the chant of “Jews will not replace us” at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. Trump’s claim that “there were fine people on both sides, still haunts all ethical Americans and especially, the Jewish community. His rhetoric, dating back decades is peppered with antisemitism and anti Jewish tropes. In Trump’s current administration, there is no shortage of Republicans rabidly antisemitic.
In the wake of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the fringe progressives on the left, focused their antisemitism on Israel herself, essentially condemning all Israelis, based on Hamas Health Ministry propaganda and dishonest reporting in most western news sources. To this day I will not read Reuters nor the BBC, due to the pervasiveness of their dishonesty in Gaza war reporting. While still in uniform and working the counterterrorism mission with yearly deployments, the dishonesty of Hamas was part of our yearly pre-deployment refresher training. There is an entire propaganda system that supports Hamas, complete with film crews, social media operations and every other form of influence operations.
Just as brainwashed republicans believe in countless conspiracy theories bestowed upon them by professional and adversarial influence operations, the narratives supported by most progressives, are just as outrageous. They believe the casualty numbers from the Hamas Health Ministry, a known propaganda source. Hamas, their nation-state supporters like Iran and Russia provide much of the muscle when it comes to disseminating conspiracy theories, false narratives and general dishonest propaganda. These sources have convinced the fringe left, that Israel has occupied Gaza despite the fact that they stopped their occupation in 2005. Hamas, Iranian and Russian advisors have run Gaza ever since.
Hamas violence against their own people rarely makes headlines in the west, despite the truth being known by experts and the Palestinians living in Gaza under brutal Hamas oppression. Within a couple of hours after the ceasefire began, Hamas rolled back into Gaza with their weapons (a violation of the ceasefire) after being released from Israeli prisons, and immediately began dragging Palestinians from their homes and executing them in the street. Most media concurrently continued broadcasting dishonesty about IDF, Israeli Defense Forces operations murdering innocent civilians. Were there mistakes and occasional IDF members violating protocols and international law, yes, but the numbers of these events and issues were in no way, the norm.
Critics are poorly and dishonestly informed by media. Others have zero understanding of brutal urban combat, with hundreds of kilometers of tunnels under Gaza, especially under what international law calls, “protected sites.” Criticism is easy when the critics are hundreds or thousands of miles away safely ensconced on their sofa. John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point has observed combat in Gaza on fact finding missions and disagrees with the media assessment of Israel committing genocide or intentionally targeting civilians. On a related note and in service to full transparency, I was recently named to the Irregular Warfare Institute as an advisor, also sponsored by West Point.
These false narratives about Israeli operations have become a mainstay of far-left narratives, without evidence. To be clear and to employ a quote attributed to American Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman, “war is hell.” Gaza is no different and urban combat is nasty business, especially when the enemy insists on using their own people, Israeli hostages and protected sites as tools of war. No one wants what is often called either civcas, short for civilian casualties or the term, “collateral damage.” Israeli soldiers are not the barbarians Hamas was on October 7th.
I professionally consider the media’s dishonest claims of genocide and intentionally targeting civilians, slanderous at best, disgraceful at worst. Whether it’s dishonest behavior like this overseas or via the methodology of the right and left here at home, antisemitism or ignorance is deeply embedded into both. I wish to be perfectly clear on this point. I do not professionally believe that the use of 2,000 lb. munitions appropriate in some of the situations the IDF employed them but then again, my urban combat days were in Baghdad, not Gaza. I believe John Spencer’s expert analysis to be worthy of believing.
Those civilians on both sides of the Gaza conflict bear the burden of suffering and this is tragically not going to change so long as terrorist organizations supported by the likes of Iran and Russia are not fully dismantled. We must always do all possible to protect civilians but as is often said in my military community, “the enemy gets a vote.” Here at home, there are no excuses or satisfactory justifications for heaping antisemitism on a nation or their people, when they are literally fighting against documented intentions to impose genocide on Israel. Yes, Hamas and Hezbollah have long declared their intent for Israeli genocide as their primary reason for being. They are not freedom fighters, they’re terrorists.
When we went through the months of campus protests against Israel, the signs, slogans and banners declared antisemitism in the starkest of terms. Never doubt that the slogan, “from the river to the sea” is anything but, genocidal in its intentions. Within a couple weeks of the war beginning, Israeli suffering and their hostages were all but dropped from western media coverage, only to be replaced with false narratives of genocide. This is tantamount to broadcasting antisemitism, due to the intent of those broadcasters to intentionally broadcast an anti-Israeli false narrative. The last thing I will say on Gaza is that, anyone who believes that any sustainable opportunity for peace will come without dismantling Hamas, has no idea of what they are talking about.
As if the media and the GOP’s overt antisemitism wasn’t enough, the GOP then attempted to sell a narrative that their attacks on universities where protests occurred, were to protect Jews. Make no mistake about their misdirection narrative, Trump and the GOP’s campaign against universities is based on only two things, Trump’s vengeful malignant narcissism and the Project 2025 intent to steer education towards a sterile, White Christian Nationalist agenda, that supports the current ideology of the Republican Party. Education has been in the gunsights of the GOP since the old Moral Majority days of the late seventies and eighties. The White Christian Nationalism agenda is by default, antisemitic.
Under the umbrella of Project 2025 comes the Heritage Foundation’s, Project Esther. Republicans claim it is an “antisemitism effort” but a closer look reveals different agendas. Project Esther is really a way to define anti-Israel protesters and loosely connected groups of Palestinian advocates as antisemitic in order to take action against them, including deportations. Antisemitism isn’t only growing nationally, it is creating serious rifts within the Republican Party.
Like any extremist movement, the MAGA Republican Party sustains their base via a steady diet of far-right extremist ideology. One of the primary pillars of MAGA ideology is the aforementioned, White Christian Nationalism. Ideology is brainwashing for the masses and those who’ve voted for Trump more than once, are too brainwashed to resist the siren song of Trump’s demands on them. One of the most compelling aspects of GOP ideology to the base, is Christian Zionism. The National Council of Churches warned of the dangers of Christian Zionism as far back as 2006. Their public statement is below.
Response to Christian Zionism "On August 22, 2006 the highest ranking Christian leaders of Jerusalem* issued a statement of concern about the rising popularity of modem Christian theologies and political movements that embrace the extreme ideological positions of Christian Zionism. It said in part: “The Christian Zionist Programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today. We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.” The Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches brings this concern to the attention of NCC member communions, noting that this theological stance adversely affects: justice and peace in the Middle East, delaying the day when Israelis and Palestinians can live within secure borders relationships with Middle Eastern Christians relationships with Jews, since Jews are seen as mere pawns in an eschatological scheme relationships with Muslims since it ignores the rights of Muslims interfaith dialogue, since it views the world in starkly dichotomous terms Christian Zionism is flourishing in part because of the lack of knowledge and popularly accessible alternative Christian theologies of the end-times. Therefore, the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches asks: 1. That the Governing Board establish a special task force drawn from all five commissions to address this theological challenge. 2. That print and electronic resources explaining various theologies of end-times be made available to member communions on, and linked to, our website. 3. That the Interfaith Relations Commission offer a Rotation Forum on this subject at the General Assembly to raise awareness of the importance of end-times theology and to educate members and church leaders." - Response to Christian Zionism - National Council of Churches - *His Beatitude Michel Sabbah, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Sweros Malki Mourada, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal, the Episcopal Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Bishop Munib Younan, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in’ Jordan and the Holy Land - August 22, 2006
Christian Zionism is by default, antisemitic
"Christian Zionism’s soteriological narrative claims that salvation only comes to those who accept Christ as their Messiah, with those following the Jewish faith exploited and discarded as “mere pawns” for the sole benefit of Christians. The dissociation and denunciation that are central to this dogma derail interfaith discourse, contradict the core precepts of Christianity, and negate Judaism by eliminating any understanding of its theology as a path to salvation in its own right." - American Christian Zionism and Israeli-Palestinian Relations - The Fletcher School at Tufts University - Robert Flynn
Summary
The topic of antisemitism is just too big for a short essay, but my intention today, was to only talk about it’s role in America today, and how this impacts not only our domestic front, but our foreign policy as well. Bigotry of any type is patently un-American and antisemitism is but one type of systemic hate applied to a community, that has suffered pogrom after pogrom. The birth of the state of Israel, finally gave the Jewish community a chance at their own survival and in their ancestral home. After a couple millennia of being hunted, abused, driven from their homes and suffering a near holocaust during the second world war, it would seem that even today, Jews are not safe anywhere.
America was supposed to be different and for a few decades, Jews made great progress towards being accepted as equals in our nation. This is no longer true under the Trump administration that includes a base, that condones or remains silent in the face of antisemitism. Politicians pontificate about “fighting antisemitism” but as we can see, words are cheap. It’s not only Jews either, although this particular essay was about the Jewish community. Palestinians and Muslim abuse in America is also on the rise. What the hell is wrong with people, that prefer to exercise hate, rather than love and tolerance.
America was founded by brilliant and courageous founders that decreed that all of us are equal. Words though are meaningless if we don’t demand that our government honor those words. Today’s GOP does not give a damn about our founders’ intentions. They are pursuing power and greed, regardless of who is hurt in the process. Empathy for others is non-existent. Anyone can be an American and most new immigrants are far more knowledgeable about American values than those who march around proudly with their Tiki Torches or wear suits on the floor of congress.
Hating a group because of who they are and imposing suffering onto them, is the hallmark of failed patriots with a mean streak, a mile wide. The bigots behind that suffering are in the minority and it’s time we put a stop to that minority, devoid of morality, plotting the course of our national destiny. The only way that we reinvigorate our American identity, is to act on our founding principles and restore our true values. All it takes is for every voter to participate in our democracy. We have the power to restore the intentions of our founders but it will take a united effort. Not as individual groups, ethnicities, racial backgrounds nor any other type of divisive attribute, but as Americans emboldened by the courage of those who came before, and sustained this republic throughout our history.
We owe our children, grandchildren and beyond, the priceless gift of liberty and equality that we knew, before this immoral Trump era. As it so happens, this essay will be published during Chanukah, celebrating the miracle of freedom, restoration and hope for the future. I’d say that the lessons of Chanukah are as appropriate today, as they were a couple of thousand years ago. Jews have learned to survive countless generations of abusers like today’s GOP, and built resilience into the cultural identity of Judaism in the process. America has made it 250 years, so maybe its time to build that same resilience into the American people in order to prevent another “Trump era” via another soulless wannabe dictator. We can do this but it will take work to patch up our republic. I’m all in and hope to find myself shoulder to shoulder, with all of you.
Back later in the week,
Paul