Armstrong Williams

‘Shocked but not surprised’ at antisemitic violence

By Armstrong Williams

Originally published in the Baltimore Sun.

Two times in two weeks. High-profile attacks on Jews in Boulder, Colo., and Washington, D.C.

A left-wing terrorist committed two antisemitic murders — in the heart of our nation’s capital, no less. Days later, a group of Jews who gathered to walk and raise awareness for the hostages held by Hamas were firebombed with home-made incendiary devices by a man in Colorado shouting “Free Palestine.”

For those of us paying attention to antisemitism, the phrase “shocked but not surprised” has become a kind of grim mantra we repeat every time we see news of the latest anti-Jewish hate crime. It never comes out of nowhere — and while many still associate antisemitism with neo-Nazis, today’s perpetrators are increasingly radical activists.

Either way, their ideology is hostile to Jews.

For neo-Nazis, Jews are somehow both contemptible subhumans and conniving puppeteers who manipulate economies and societies around the world for their own nefarious ends. This seemingly contradictory bigotry is known as “high/low” antisemitism, in which Jews are weak enough to despise but strong enough to pose a threat to white supremacy.

The left-wing antisemitic position is similarly incoherent and vile. In their paradigm, Jews used to be a vulnerable minority but forfeited that status through the founding of Israel and assimilation into American white supremacy. This narrative characterizes Jews as oppressors of other minorities whom leftists deem legitimately vulnerable, including Palestinian Arabs.

Never mind that Jews are targeted for 68% of religious-based hate crimes and 15% of all hate crimes, despite being just 2% of the American population. Never mind that Jewish Americans have neither allegiance to nor influence on the state of Israel.

I’ve talked with leftist activists on many occasions. Their favorite slogans — “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free (or Arab)” and “globalize the intifada” are explicit calls to eliminate Israel, an undertaking that would require violent ethnic cleansing. No one worth respecting could assert that the Palestinian Authority or Hamas embrace democracy while rejecting Islamism and antisemitism.

Some activists try to distinguish their hostility to Israel from their attitudes toward Jews, but that exercise requires either extreme ignorance or grave dishonesty.

Even if one believed, as they do, that Israel is an evil apartheid state, conceived out of racism and carrying out an ongoing genocide, why have leftists attacked Jewish restaurants, Jewish university students and Holocaust museums?

Why did a man yelling “Free Palestine” shoot two attendees, neither of whom was born in Israel, at a peacebuilding conference for young diplomats? Because the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim merely crystallized what many of us already knew: To antisemites, all Jews are guilty.

Yes, Yaron was a Messianic Jew — or a Christian, depending on who you ask. Ultimately, however, his personal faith does not affect the antisemitic nature of his murder. His killer, Elias Rodriguez, believed Yaron to be Jewish — there’s no other explanation for lying in wait outside a Jewish event hosted by a Jewish organization at a Jewish museum. The same pattern played out in Colorado, where Jewish Americans were targeted and set aflame by a pro-Palestine attacker.

Antisemitism is a societal disease that flourishes where people’s passion outstrips their knowledge, where ideology takes precedence over facts.

And I’ve seen where it leads.

I recently returned from a trip to Europe, where I visited Auschwitz and Dachau. The gas chambers, the crematoria, the cattle cars are seared into my memory, tools of a regime that was eager to blame all Jews for problems for which they were not responsible.

I don’t think America is heading toward an antisemitic genocide, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the warnings of the Holocaust.

Not everyone who murdered Jews in the 1940s was a German soldier. There were plenty of civilians who, like Elias Rodriguez, became killers or informants out of a warped sense of “justice.”

They were ordinary people who bought into the dehumanization and demonization of Jews. They saw their atrocities as acts of righteousness.

I wish that didn’t sound so familiar.

I’m tired of being “shocked but not surprised” by violent antisemitism. I’m tired of reading every day about assaults, vandalism and genocidal protests hiding behind the cheap mask of social justice rhetoric.

The best way for us to honor Yaron and Sarah’s memory is to emphatically reject the ideology that led to their deaths. Jew-haters can’t pretend that it’s all about Israel anymore, so don’t let them.