Monday, August 15, 2011

Fatal Attraction

Denis Prager, a devout Jew, uses the attempt in San Francisco to ban circumcision as a springboard for wondering what it will take for American Jews to realize that the progressive left is not their friend:
So, then, given my profound support for circumcision, what good could possibly come from San Francisco passing a ban on it?

If the most left-wing major city in America starts arresting Jews who have their children circumcised there, some American Jews might awaken to the threat to Jews posed by the left. Obviously, San Francisco's already existing bans on toys in Happy Meals, on soda in city-owned places and on plastic bags, and the city's proposed ban on the sale of pets, even goldfish, have not moved many Jews (or non-Jews) to begin wondering whether left-wing governance is dangerous. But perhaps a ban on circumcision will.

Of course, not everyone who is on the left -- and certainly not the traditional liberal -- is an enemy of the Jews. But, aside from Islamists, virtually all the enemies of the Jews are on the left.

The worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel (i.e., to pave the way for moral acceptance of Israel's destruction) is virtually all on the left. Universities in America and elsewhere in the Western world, as well as the mainstream news media outlets around the globe, are all dominated by the left. They drum into their students', readers', listeners' and viewers' minds that Israel is one of the worst societies on earth.

The anti-Israel propaganda on the left is so great and so effective that according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, "Many of the youths who survived the (Norway) massacre said they thought the killer, dressed as a police officer, was simulating Israeli crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories."

Yet, most American Jews still walk around thinking that Christians and conservatives are their enemies when, in fact, they are the best friends Jews have in the world today. From the present conservative Canadian government, which is probably the most vocal pro-Israel country in the world today, to every major conservative talk-show host in America (including the fiercely pro-Jewish and pro-Israel Glenn Beck, who has been libeled as an anti-Semite), to the leader of Holland's Party for Freedom and member of the Dutch parliament, Geert Wilders (one of the most eloquent pro-Israel voices in Europe today), to The Wall Street Journal's editorial page -- the right is where the Jews' friends are.

What will it take for this generation of Jews on the left to realize what Arthur Koestler, perhaps the most prominent Jewish leftist of a previous generation, came to realize: namely, that leftism is "the god that failed"?
Prager makes an important point. Too many Jews, like too many blacks, live in thrall to the myth that progressives are looking out for their best interests. They believe the myth that to be conservative is to be an anti-semite (or racist). They believe that to be a Christian is to see Jews as "Christ-killers," and they believe that to be a Christian conservative is to be an anti-intellectual yahoo.

None of this, of course, is true. As Prager writes, the exact opposite is the case, but myths die hard. Blacks still think after seventy years of fealty to the Democratic party that Democrats will someday solve their problems. Jews who support the progressive left are just as blind to the fact that almost all the non-Muslim anti-semitism in our society today is found there.