Crying Wolf: The Attempt to Delegitimize the President Alex Grobman, PhD
Attempts to delegitimize President Donald Trump by characterizing him as an antisemite are fatuous, repulsive and demonstrates little or no understanding of what constitutes antisemitism. The failure of the administration to recognize Jews in the Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day produced a torrent of criticism.
The administration’s slow condemnation of the desecration of the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri as soon as the vandalism occurred, caused additional angst. It should be noted, Vice President Mike Pence strongly denounced the wave of antisemitic acts, and visited the cemetery to assist in repairing the damage.
By not immediately condemning the bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and offering reassurance that steps would be taken to protect the Jewish community were viewed by a number of Jews as a dangerous sign.
To a reasonable observer, it appeared that the president’s response to Jake Turx, a haredi reporter for Ami Magazine, who asked how his administration will handle the increase in antisemitic acts in the US, was defensive and rushed. Rather than allowing the journalist to finish his question, the president attempted to disarm what must have seemed to him to be another hostile reporter. While clearly coming to the wrong conclusion, this degree of insensitivity, and the corresponding initial reluctance to speak out against antisemitism caused concern. Yet none of these examples indicate whatsoever that the president is antisemitic or supports antisemitism. The idea is so ludicrous that it defies all logic.
Before accusing someone of being antisemitic, one should have an actual basis for making such a serious allegation. Indiscriminate labeling an individual an antisemite distorts the gravity of the accusation and becomes the equivalent of crying wolf.
Defining Antisemitism
How then do we define antisemitism? Efforts to define what historian Robert S. Wistrich called “The Longest Hatred,” have been attempted since the German journalist Wilhelm Marr first coined the term in 1870. On January 28, 2005, the European Union Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), arrived at a definition, which remains the accepted standard for evaluating expressions of antisemitism.
Working definition:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
In addition, such manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.”
It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.
Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:
- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
- Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”
Given these criteria, how can the president be called an antisemite? The president extols the fact that he has Jewish children and grandchildren. Moreover, he has surrounded himself with Jews throughout his business career and now in government. Two of the president’s closest advisors are highly committed observant Orthodox Jews: his daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared, as is his nominee for ambassador to Israel.
The image of the president, who is known for his love and devotion to his family, walking hand in hand with Joseph and Arabella Kushner on to Marine One, is hardly the picture of a man who hates the Jewish people.
Anti-Israel Bias at UN Will No Longer be Tolerated
In contrast to the Trump administration’s handling of recent events within the American Jewish community, Ron Prosor, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN and the United Kingdom, lauded the US government’s refusal to tolerate the UN’s incessant anti-Israel attacks any longer.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Prosor said, “After a Security Council session on the Middle East—which focused solely on criticism of Israel—she [Ambassador Niki Haley] offered a review that was the most honest I have ever heard from a U.S. diplomat. Ambassador Nikki Haley ‘The United States will not turn a blind eye to this anymore,’ she said. ‘I’m here to emphasize the United States is determined to stand up to the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias, and we will push for action on the real threats we face from the Middle East.’”
If Ambassador Haley’s historic statement, (https://www.onenewsnow.com/national-security/2017/02/24/haleys-comet-burns-un-for-anti-israel-actions), becomes American policy, the implications for Israel in the international arena are significant. She and the administration should be praised for the US finally standing up for Israel.
A Final Note: Accusing an individual of being an antisemite without any foundation, is extremely dishonest, can alienate our potential allies, and obscure the danger we face from those truly seeking our destruction. British historian Norman Geras warns that the notion that antisemitism has become respectable not just among the “thugs,”but “pervasively also within polite society… and within the perimeters of a self-flattering liberal and left opinion… is a moral scandal.”
Should a new catastrophe befall world Jewry, Geras is convinced there will once again be those who plan and orchestrate the calamity and those who “collaborate, collude,” and avert their eyes and justify their actions in writings. “Some of these, dismayingly, shamefully, will be of the left.” There is no other conclusion, he says, which is why it is imperative to understand the nature of the threat.
Alex Grobman, a Hebrew University-trained historian, is a consultant to the America-Israel Friendship League, a member of the Council of Scholars for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and a member of the Advisory Board of The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET). Among his numerous books include License to Murder: The Enduring Threat of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened, and Why Do They Say It?
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