Trump Apologists Diminish anti-Semitism and Distort Reality
Analogies to Obama’s policies on Israel are a red herring that create a false moral equivalence.
Chemi Shalev Feb 28, 2017 1:41 PM
In May 1990, France was horrified by the desecration of a Jewish cemetery. The destruction of 34 graves as well as the ghoulish disinterment of a recently buried corpse in Carpentras near Avignon was described as the worst anti-Semitic incident since the Holocaust. The collective revulsion brought out 200,000 protestors to the streets of Paris, led by then President Francois Mitterrand. It was an impressive show of solidarity, but the incident, in hindsight, was a harbinger of things to come.
The desecrations came against a backdrop of a fierce national debate over race and immigration and in the wake of a wave of anti-Muslim violence and killings. Racism of any kind, most French commentators said, inevitably breeds anti-Semitism. Jean Marie Le Pen, unabashed anti-Semite and father of current French presidential contender Marine Le Pen, was accused of fomenting hatred and violence. His National Front movement dipped in the polls, from 18 percent to 11 percent, but slowly recovered. The desecration, it later emerged, was carried out by neo-Nazi skinheads.
The Carpentras incident was a watershed in the history of French Jewry just as the current wave of cemetery desecrations in Philadelphia and St. Louis as well as the bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers all across America could mark a turning point in the annals of American Jewry. There are stark differences of course, first and foremost because in France, as in all of Europe, the Holocaust always looms large. In France, traditional anti-Semitism from the far right was soon supplemented by tensions with the growing Muslim community, while in America, so far at least, the attacks on Jews as well as the hostility shown by the Trump administration towards Muslims have brought the two communities closer together. On the other hand, in France the entire political leadership stood as one against the anti-Semites whereas in U.S. President Donald Trump has turned a blind eye, at best, or actually aided and abetted their emergence, at worst.
What’s even more dismaying is the fact that Trump is being buoyed by a cadre of enablers and apologists, many of them Jews, who are doing their best to make light of the attacks, to ridicule the growing Jewish apprehension and to absolve Trump of any complicity in the rise of anti-Jewish sentiment. The arguments of these Trump apologists are multilayered: A. Anti-Semitism isn’t growing; B. If it is, it has nothing to do with Donald Trump; and C. Where were you when Obama was president and anti-Semitism was almost official state policy?
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