Intolerant politics

The US Congress recently passed a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry and intolerance. Ostensibly the resolution was introduced in response to remarks by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar whose criticism of the pro-Israel lobby’s influence on American policy was perceived to be anti-Semitic. Omar was accused of pandering to stereotypes about  hidden influencers with a “globalist” agenda, and the idea that diaspora Jewish populations harbour divided loyalties when weighing their nation’s interests against those of Israel.

In the uproar that greeted Omar’s remarks, several pundits warned against the growing tendency to conflate anti-Zionism – or indeed any questioning of Israel’s policies – with anti-Semitism. Others noted that evangelical Christians are the most zealous proponents of America’s pro-Israel stance and that their attitudes towards Jews are, at best, conflicted. Some found no offence whatsoever in Omar’s comments and pointed instead to the fact that she is one of the first two Muslim women in the US Congress, and the first to wear a hijab.

Omar offered a carefully phrased apology, thanking her Jewish friends and allies for helping her to better grasp the history of American anti-Semitism which had provoked some of the responses to her comments. That should have been the end of the affair, but America’s public sphere has become so suffused with outrage that Omar was already the target of a hate campaign. In the West Virginia Capitol a  poster appeared linking her to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Elsewhere, death threats were scribbled on walls in public buildings. More generally, in the words of New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, Omar was “treated as a dangerous foreign interloper in American politics and the embodiment of anti-Semitism, even though her Republican colleagues routinely demonstrate far worse anti-Jewish bigotry.”

It is worth reviewing some of the evidence of that bigotry. It might, for example, include President Trump’s recent tweet describing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as “little shifty Schiff”; or Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s tweet, during the 2018 mid-term elections: “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election! Get out and vote Republican November 6th. #MAGA” Although McCarthy’s tweet was subsequently deleted after a pipe bomb was mailed to George Soros, Trump’s insinuation about Schiff has passed largely without comment. Further evidence of Conservative  intolerance might even include the December 2015 remarks of Jerry Falwell Jr., scion of the deceased leader of the religious right, to students at Liberty University in the wake of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, that “if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.”

Beyond these statements lie disturbing memories of  white nationalist marches in Charlottesville Virginia in which hundreds of torch-bearing men chanted “You will not replace us” (a response to the white-nationalist “White Genocide” meme). This refrain was often altered to  “Jews Will Not Replace Us.” There is also the appalling moment white-nationalist leader Richard Spencer breezily uttered the phrase “Hail Trump!” while addressing a group of supremacists in the wake of the 2016 election.

In other words, beneath the hypocritical politicking occasioned by Ms Omar’s remarks there is considerable anti-Semitism and intolerance in America, much of it scarily close to the surface of public life. Hateful ideology was assiduously cultivated by dozens of hate groups during the Obama years, and several of them have been emboldened by the Trump presidency. It is concerning not only that  the president can ignore their malice by arguing, for instance, that there were “good people on both sides” in Charlottesville, but also that more ambitious efforts to counter such intolerance should peter out into the recent anodyne “kitchen sink” resolution that Congress has just passed.