Schumer addresses the beam in the left’s eye

A broken clock tells the correct time twice in a day-night cycle. Yesterday morning (November 29), Sen. Charles M. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Majority Leader, had his broken-clock moment. For more than an hour, on the floor of the Senate, he address what is to him the beam in the left’s eye, regarding reaction to the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. That beam is the rise of antisemitism in America – most of it, he readily acknowledges and bewails, from the left. But for all that, his speech was incomplete – so it might not have the effect for which he might hope.

What Senator Schumer said

Sen. Schumer took the floor to push for more aid – specifically, loans, merchandise credits, and export allowances – to Israel as it continues to fight its war with and in Gaza, against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Arabic Harakah al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, abbreviated HAMAS). NBC, ABC and Reuters all covered the speech, but Marc Rod of Jewish Insider covered it most comprehensively. The senator also published more remarks in The New York Times.

Schumer explained that, as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States today (and in history), he had a positive duty to address this issue. He went on to call antisemitism, at the levels America is seeing today, “a five-alarm fire.” Then he expressed the “deep fear,” on the part of American Jews, of the “normalization and exacerbation” of this sentiment.

One would naturally expect him to start talking about anti-Jewish sentiment on the right or “far right.” Indeed CNAV condemns again certain voices on the right who have all but said the Israeli people deserve the atrocities that HAMAS operatives – and the willing executioners among its “civilian” population – perpetrated against them on October 7, 2023. We called this the beam in the right’s eye, and still do – but Sen. Schumer calls that a mere speck! In his speech yesterday, he highlighted the demonstrations of antisemitism on the left. In fact he said Jews haven’t seen anything like this in America for generations.

Details

Stephen Miller at Newsweek is pleased that Schumer mentioned it, but only middling pleased – for the Senator would not name the worst offenders in his Party. Like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who led an invasion of the Cannon House Office Building and now is under censure. (Rashida Tlaib is also a member of a secret Facebook group of HAMAS apologists.) Or Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) who has drawn reprimands even before this latest War.

Did Sen. Schumer act with opportunistic pragmatism, after political consultant Dan Backer warned Democrats that swing voters know Israel is the good guy? Perhaps. He would have done better to address the matter after Rep. Tlaib invaded the Cannon Building with her pro-HAMAS mob. But that he addressed it at all – and for more than an hour – is significant in itself.

He called out university administrations who refuse to crack down on pro-HAMAS demonstrations on their campuses. He mentioned the Jewish schoolteacher in Queens who barricaded herself in her office after students – in school – rioted and called for her termination. And he directly condemned the sympathy for HAMAS that has arisen on the left. Most tellingly of all, he denounced “people that most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers.” And he mentioned those who now attack Jews for being Jewish, not necessarily for advocating for or sympathizing with Israel.

Proving his point

Near the closing, Schumer cited ordinary German civilians who marched with Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists, then said nothing “after his horrifying intent [became] clear.” Result: Kristallnacht, and the Holocaust, in which six million Jews (and four million Gentiles) lost their lives.

Ironically, certain events subsequent to his speech, and legacy media coverage of it, proves his point. ABC and Reuters both cited the Gaza Health Ministry for casualty figures in the Israel Defense Forces’ retaliatory actions. At the funeral for Rosalynn Carter, who died earlier this month, pro-HAMAS protesters disrupted the proceedings.

Equally ironically, these spectacles haven’t shaken his call for a “two-state solution” to the Palestine problem. But of course the antisemitism of the Left expresses itself by repeating the common Muslim refrain:

From the river to the sea,

Palestine shall be free!

Which at minimum is a call for absolute surrender by, and evacuation of all Jews from, the Republic of Israel.

The day before he made his speech, Sen. Schumer, with “dozens” of his fellow Senators, viewed a 46-minute montage of footage from the October 7 beginning of the war. By all accounts, that foorage put the atrocities of the enemy into stark relief. The Senator said he had to closet himself in his office for half an hour afterward, to compose himself.

What other lessons can we learn from what Schumer said?

The Senator called out his fellow leftists for playing into the hands of anti-Jewish theorists throughout history.

Antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout the generations often theorize, often weaponize this very dynamic, by pitting what successes the Jewish people have achieved against them and against their fellow countrymen. That’s been throughout history and it’s happening now.

In case that quote seems confusing, here is what he meant. Gentiles look at what Jews have achieved, through hard work and application of their talents. But instead of thinking how to emulate this work ethic and develop their own talents, too many Gentiles prefer to believe that Jews have conspired against them, to block achievements that should have been theirs.

And the Western world has seen that throughout its history. William Shakespeare nearly disgraced himself with The Merchant of Venice, which portrays a loan shark as typical of Jews. Indeed the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ played out against a backdrop of the worst example, pre-Hitler and pre-Islam, of antisemitism as global public policy. That example is, of course, the Roman occupation of Judea, from Pompey to Hadrian, who ordered the Diaspora.

Many on the right look at the Jewish history of voting Democratic and supporting the causes of those “ideological fellow travelers” Schumer mentioned. Then, to their shame, they say, “It serves them right.” Atrocity can never serve anyone right.

An incomplete manifesto

But will Jewish rank-and-file Americans take the hint the Senator almost dropped, and drop their advocacy of leftist causes? To return to Stephen Miller’s point, probably not – because the Senator wouldn’t name names. Worse still, Schumer legitimatized political truancy – literally walking out of school – and in a most ignoble cause, to wit: support of HAMAS. Of course, he didn’t put it that way; he spoke of support of Palestinians. But atrocity totally delegitimatizes the causes of those who commit it. So it is with HAMAS, as others have forcefully declared. The Senator doesn’t seem to realize that. Nor does he understand that a two-state solution is impossible and unworkable. He professes support for Israel as a kind of worldwide Jewish insurance policy. Yet he doesn’t understand enough of the history – ancient and medieval as well as modern – to realize just how strong the Israeli land claim really is.

In mentioning the above, CNAV reiterates its strenuous insistence that those on the right mind what they say as well. That means minding the history – again, ancient and medieval as well as modern.

Miller said Jewish Americans need better leadership than Schumer provided. Maybe what they need is a Shofet, like Jephthah, who can rally Jew and Gentile alike. That kind of “judge” is what we all need. The ancient Shoftim won’t come back – but someday, and very soon, the Messiah will.