Why We Must Rise Up and Battle Anti-Semitism

Mark Ruffalo came out on Twitter the other day and angered a lot of people, but not the people he usually tends to anger.

“I have reflected & wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing 'genocide.' It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful & is being used to justify antisemitism here & abroad," Ruffalo wrote. "Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”

I actually missed his comments about Israel committing genocide, but that’s because I generally tune out that kind of hyperbole. Still, it was a bit of a gut punch to see that a person with his far-left following would engage in that sort of language, knowing where it leads.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States, and it’s no longer a product of the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, survivalists, domestic terrorists, and sociopaths that the media and society in general has lumped together under the convenient heading “right-wing zealots.” They still exist, of course.

But the true and more troubling source of anti-Jewish bigotry these days comes from the left, the tolerant, hate has no home here, we love all of you, kumbaya, open tent, left. That has never been more obvious than in the days following the conflict in the Middle East involving Hamas on one side, and Israel on the other.

The fact that the mainstream media has attempted to frame it as a conflict between “Palestinians” and Israel is simply one sign of the bigotry that is perhaps so internalized that not even journalists who think they are acting in good faith recognize it.

Israel was not fighting against “the Palestinians.” Israel was defending itself against a terror group that has been funded as if it were a sovereign nation by other sovereign nations, including Iran and Russia.

But that false moral equivalency is only part of the anti-Semitism.

Many on the left argue that they can’t be anti-Semitic because there are Jews in America, not to mention Israeli human rights organizations, that condemn Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza. That is hopelessly naïve.

The people who are throwing rocks at Jews in New York, and tweeting out as a CNN contributor did that “we need another Hitler,” and driving through the streets with Palestinian flags waving while screaming about apartheid Israel are not interested in politics. They are interested in what Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted: Removal of the “cancerous tumor” called Israel.

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