A Dangerous Fake: Trump's Fight Against Antisemitism

It's a Fake

Trump’s fight against antisemitism at American universities is fake. It is also dangerous to all Americans but above all to Jews and to members of other minorities. The fight against antisemitism is fake because Trump’s Republican coalition includes some of our country’s most virulent antisemites. NPR has reported that several Trump officials have ties to antisemitic extremists. Trump’s dependence on antisemitic allies has been clear at least since his refusal to reject the views of the marchers in Charlottesville who chanted “Jews will not replace us.”

Trump can appear to oppose antisemitism only by conflating Jews with Israelis and claiming that opposition to Israel’s policies in Gaza is antisemitism, which it is not necessarily. It is true that anti-Israel speech often shades over into antisemitic speech, and some supporters of the Palestinian cause are undoubtedly antisemitic. It is also true that many Jewish students have been subjected to antisemitic harassment at various universities. Only a few days ago, a Jewish couple were shot to death as they were leaving a Jewish event in Washington, D.C. Life for American Jews has indeed become dangerous. Nevertheless, opposing Israel's policies in Gaza does not necessarily make you an antisemite, but claiming that it does gives Trump an excuse for limiting freedom of speech, for attacking faculty members and for deporting foreign students. (He needs to deport foreign students to maintain the credibility of another of his fakes.)

Trump rails against supporters of the Palestinian cause, but he never rails against the danger of home-grown, American antisemitism. He works to suppress pro-Palestinian speech at Columbia and Harvard, and he deports foreign students who express pro-Palestinian views. He even promotes the firing of Jewish professors or students who support the Palestinian cause. On the other hand, he never proposes suppressing the antisemitic screeds on social media that encouraged a man to kill Jews in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and he uses antisemitic tropes himself in his own speeches. Trump’s fight is really against freedom of speech and of the press. It is aimed at suppressing any expression of opinions that are opposed to his ideas or policies. The defense of Jews is only an excuse.

It's Dangerous

This fake fight against antisemitism is dangerous for Jews because, as The Guardian has reported, many of those targeted by Trump are in fact Jewish students or professors and because, as an opinion piece in POLITICO has said,

We need to be very vigilant about the erosion of the rule of law and our civil liberties … because that is the best defense against antisemitism, not the protection of the strongmen.

Or as Michael Roth says in the NY Times,

Abductions by government agents; unexplained, indefinite detentions; the targeting of allegedly dangerous ideas; lists of those under government scrutiny; official proclamations full of bluster and bile — Jews have been here before, many times, and it does not end well for us. The rule of law and the right to freedom of thought and expression are essential safeguards for everyone, but especially so for members of groups whose ideas or practices don’t always align with the mainstream. As M. Gessen recently wrote in these pages, “A country that has pushed one group out of its political community will eventually push out others.” What our government is doing now is wrong in itself, but beyond that, it poses a bigger threat to Jewish people’s safety than all the campus protests ever could.

Focus on Maintaining and Improving Our Democracy

Trump hopes that we Jews will not notice that his claim for be against antisemitism masks his support for home-grown antisemitism and his suppression of civil liberties, but we should keep our focus on maintaining and improving American democracy. We should not support an authoritarian politician who represents a clear and present danger to American Jews along with other minority groups in our country.