DEI has always been antisemitic at the core

The Fourth Arab-Israeli War has divided the two grand coalitions, left and right. Each coalition has split for reasons different from those of the other. But until today, the abandonment of Jewish leftists by their Gentile counterparts remained a baffling – and painful – mystery. In point of fact, that war has revealed a level of condescension toward Jews within the leftist coalition. That level has always existed, and now no one wants to hide it any longer. They did hide it – in programs promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Now comes fresh evidence that DEI was always subject to a “Gentleperson’s Agreement.” And now that agreement is open, therefore no longer “gentle.”

Senator Sanders sees the masks come off

The phrase Gentleperson’s Agreement derives from the motion picture Gentleman’s Agreement, dir. Elia Kazan, with Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and John Garfield; 20^th Century-Fox, 1947. That film focused on antisemitism in the world of mahogany-paneled offices and conference rooms, and social clubs. But it applies with greater force today on university campuses, especially with active DEI programs.

Kevin Haggerty revealed this dirty little secret of the left today in BizPac Review. His story begins yesterday afternoon, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) chose to remember an ugly mass murder that happened five years ago. On October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There he murdered eleven congregants – merely because they were Jewish. At his arrest, he told police he had deliberately sought to kill Jews, saying, “All Jews must die.” A jury convicted him of the crimes last summer – a long wait. Then in August another jury recommended the death penalty.

So on the anniversary of the murders, Sen. Sanders saw fit to remember the dead.

Incredibly, he drew some of the ugliest, most negative reaction one ever gets on X.

The Senator’s detractors evidently hadn’t heard about his speech on the Senate floor slightly more than twenty-four hours earlier:

But the negative reaction drew some outrage of its own:

DEI has a hidden exception

But this should have surprised no one. Ten days ago, Tabia Lee, former DEI Director at De Anza College, shared her bitter – and enlightening – experience. In an op-ed at The New York Post she explained that DEI always had a secret exception, i.e., Jews. “[T]oxic DEI ideology deliberately stokes hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people,” she said.

A provocative statement? Most certainly – but she has evidence to back it up. This illustrates, of course, that the left has two kinds of people in it. Shut-eyes actually believe in the stated ideals of the programs they espouse – while opens do not. The opens are the parties to the “Gentleperson’s Agreement,” the secret designations of groups that are “more equal than other groups,” or, as in the case of the Jews, less equal.

Tabia Lee is not Jewish herself, but she supported Jews in their efforts to make their learning environment less hostile. And how did her co-workers treat her? As if she were a traitor to her race – or to the broad category of “non-white oppressed people.” Recall that, according to Critical Theory, racist ≡ white. (The symbol ≡ reads “is identical to.”) Surprise! Jewish ≡ white according to “the DEI industry.”

Lessons from history

Nor does the existence of Reform and other Jewish movements that do not sympathize with Jewish homeland sentiment, matter. Zionist ≡ Jewish. And of course, the United Nations, in 1975, equated Zionism with racism. Then, a feisty Irishman named Daniel Patrick Moynihan gave his famous retort:

The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act. Amb. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, November 10, 1975

Perhaps Mr. Moynihan was atoning for the abandonment of the Jews by his Party’s hero, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Fast-forward to today, when all too many colleges pass Boycott, Divestiture and Sanction resolutions against Israel. When De Anza College’s student body passed the first such BDS resolution, naturally Jewish students felt shamed – or slandered. Dr. Lee tried to set that right – and came in for criticism for violating the “Gentleperson’s Agreement.” She ended in losing her job – and since then, other students, teachers, and administrators have told her this kind of thing goes on all over the country.

What she is now doing, also should surprise no one: she repudiates DEI. She add the word toxic to it, and by that she means to abolish this “Gentleperson’s Agreement.” If this does not happen, she warns, hatred toward Jews will only get worse.

DEI and what it tried to hide

Note that Lee wrote of her experiences of two years ago, long before anyone thought that war would break out with such an incredible series of atrocities as the anti-Jewish side in that war began with. The problem, she says, is that those who have stoked the flames, don’t know what to say. So they say nothing – and that hurts worse. (But not all are content to say nothing! Several have openly justified those atrocious acts.)

From the river to the sea, / Palestine shall be free! Common Chant

Four years ago, CNAV contributor Joan Swirsky asked point-blank whether her fellow Jews had a death wish. Why, she asked, did Jews continue to support liberal causes, the promoters of which hate the Jews almost as bad as, say, Haman the Agagite did? (See Esther.) The answer is that they really believed that their very faith prescribed leftist politics. But that doesn’t matter to Gentile leftists, and never has.

The right must look to itself, too

Which brings us to the division on the right regarding whether Israel is in the right, or the wrong. Even before the War broke out, at least two prominent commentators on the right asked:

To know who really rules the world, ask whom you are not allowed to criticize.

By whom they meant the Jews, of course. They even went so far as to identify Barack Obama as Jewish. (Actually he’s more Arabic than anything else.) If half their suspicions were correct, Tabia Lee would never have seen the ugliness she witnessed and tried to combat.

Now that the war has broken out, CNAV sees nominal conservatives taking the side of atrocious actors. Sadly, this, too, is nothing new; recall what Patrick J. Buchanan once said:

There are only two groups that are beating the drums … for war in the Middle East—the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States. Patrick J. Buchanan, addressing “The McLaughlin Group” in 1990

Would Patrick J. Buchanan say a thing like that today? Back then, the only question leading to war in the Middle East was Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Tales of atrocities emerged from that theater, too, and even today no one knows whether they were true or false. But no one can deny the atrocities of the present war. Those who committed them, boasted of them, even filmed them. (Their being high on a speed-like drug is certainly a prime cause of that.) Yet one hears paraphrases of Buchanan’s charge today – and more troubling still, is what else the paraphrasers are saying. Chief among them: the Jews rejected Christ, so Christ rejects them, and so should His followers.

Conclusion

That’s a very dangerous thing to say. Anyone who doubts that, should consider what happened to Harold Camping, twelve years ago. And of all the grounds God might have had for “delivering the Israelites into the hand of [fill-in-the-blank]),” a proper response in punishment of atrocity has never been one of them. Indeed, failure to act when such action was appropriate, set the Israelites up for near annihilation centuries later! (Again, see Esther.) In this sense the throat one hears clearing itself after an unjust criticism of the Jews is not human. It is Divine.

But more to the point, the “immunity from criticism” those on the right thought the Jews enjoyed, is an illusion. It always has been an illusion, and the DEI industry maintained it. But as one X user said, the masks have come off, for all to see.