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When Joe Biden declared his candidacy for president in 2019, he began his announcement video with two words: "Charlottesville, Virginia." With footage of marchers chanting "Jews will not replace us!" playing in the background, Biden called the infamous antisemitic rally a "defining moment for this nation." He was right to condemn the right-wing bigots.
There are dozens of Charlottesvilles taking place across the country. But now, the marchers are left-wing bigots who openly celebrate the massacre of innocent Jewish civilians.
This, too, is a "defining moment" for our nation. Yet the president has failed to adequately confront the antisemitic bile coming from the left.
Many people of goodwill on the left have been shocked by the outpouring of bigotry. But while antisemitism exists across the spectrum, right-wing antisemitism is largely a fringe phenomenon. You don't see students at Ivy League schools holding neo-Nazi rallies. Left-wing antisemitism is an elite phenomenon.
Recently, antisemitic marches have been taking place at some of our nation's most prestigious universities. On campuses where kids complain that speech is violence, students have celebrated actual violence against Jews. "They've got tanks, we've got hang-gliders, glory to the resistance fighters!" a crowd of students at George Mason University chanted.
At the University of Washington in Seattle, dozens of students chanted "There is only one solution!" At Cooper Union in Manhattan, a group of Jewish students were locked in the library as pro-Hamas protesters banged on the doors shouting "globalize the intifada from New York to Gaza!" At George Washington University in D.C., students projected antisemitic messages onto the side of a school library named for Jewish benefactors. A Cornell University professor declared at a rally that he was "exhilarated" by the Hamas killing spree. A Columbia University professor called the Hamas attacks "awesome" and "astounding." At Harvard, a speaker declared to about a thousand demonstrators that the perpetrators of the massacre were "not terrorists" but "liberators."
"It's a love fest of hate," Harvard professor emeritus Ruth Wisse tells me. "The people on the campuses shouting 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!' ... well, what they are really chanting is 'Death to the Jews!' because from the river to the sea is the land of Israel."
Meanwhile, antisemitism festers on Capitol Hill without cost or consequence. Rep. Rashida Tlaib declared at an Oct. 18 rally that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza, a claim that had been debunked as Hamas propaganda. She has faced no penalty for spreading this blood libel. Rep. Ilhan Omar has said that pro-Israel politicians "push for allegiance to a foreign country" and that U.S. support for Israel is "all about the Benjamins." Yet both remain members in good standing of the House Democratic caucus.
Responsible leaders on the left need to step up and purge the antisemites in their midst. Universities would never allow a neo-Nazi to teach, so why are professors who support the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel tolerated on their faculties?