Laying the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre at the feet of the president is unjust.
By Daniel Krygier, World Israel News
”All Jews must die,” shouted Robert Bowers, the terrorist who murdered eight Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday.
The perpetrator’s profile perfectly fits the liberal image of a racist: An angry, anti-immigrant, white male, who subscribes to far-right, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. This has made the job easier for those who want to make political hay out of this tragedy, of which sadly there are many.
Despite reasoned warnings from some, like Dani Dayan, Israel’s consul general in N.Y., who advised against politicizing this tragedy, people with axes to grind have taken to blaming President Donald Trump.
Perhaps one of the most off-the-wall smears comes from Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank, who wrote in an Oct. 28 column titled Trump’s America is not a safe place for Jews, that Trump violated George Washington’s 1790 compact to the Jews of Rhode Island.
“He has given sanction to bigotry and assistance to persecution,” Milbank wrote. He then goes on to suggest that Trump is leading America down the road to Nazism.
For Milbank and those of his ilk who wish to turn a synagogue massacre into a political talking point for the mid-term elections, we ask the simple question: Where is your evidence?
President Trump strongly condemned the synagogue massacre, calling it an “evil anti-Semitic attack.” He called for the death penalty for the killer. At a rally, he said he wanted to destroy anti-Semites, to which he was cheered by his base.
Until now, his words have been backed up by action. He has moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, something no other president had the courage to do. Similarly his administration has fought anti-Israel bigotry and Jew-hatred on a level that few administrations can match. Exhibit A is U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s stellar work in that “august” body.
To which Milbank and others say, “Who are you going to believe – me or your lying eyes?”
World’s oldest bigotry
As Israel ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer pointed out over the weekend, Trump is not responsible for a hatred that predates him by 25 centuries. It has been called the world’s oldest bigotry and it transcends time, place, religion and politics.
However, in an era of political correctness, it’s increasingly viewed through a distorted political lens.
Racist atrocities committed by fringe right-wing extremists like the Pittsburgh synagogue attacker are roundly condemned by liberals. Yet, the same Jew-hatred spread by left-wing extremists is re-branded as “criticism of Israel” or “freedom of expression.”
Social media is littered with virulent Islamist and extreme Leftist Jew-hatred. Facebook groups calling for Israel’s destruction and encouraging terrorism profilerate, untouched by the social media giant and so allowed to continue to spread their vicious hate.
Others on the Left clothe themselves in the mantle of “human rights” even as they embrace the Boycott Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) campaign seeking Israel’s destruction.
The liberal media rightly condemns the Pittsburgh synagogue attack. But the same media is largely silent to recent attacks on Israeli Jews, Ari Fuld, Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hajbi.
Like the victims in the Pittsburgh attack, these three were targeted simply for being Jews. Those who genuinely reject anti-Semitism should condemn Jew-hatred in all its forms and not express selective “outrage” when it is politically beneficial.