In the ever-shrinking world of the Jewish diaspora, Canada, along with Australia and the United States, hosts a most vital and comparatively healthy community. Yet in the midst of the current Israel-Hamas war, that community as well as those elsewhere, are under a siege that, at very least, will change their social and political orientation.
As the COP 28 climate shindig comes to a merciful end, history is truly unfolding, as Marx once remarked, as farce. Read more
With the 2024 election looming on the horizon, the Democratic Party faces a contradiction. By some important measures, the US economy is booming—third-quarter GDP growth figures were recently adjusted upward to a whopping 5.2 percent—but these numbers aren’t translating into political support for the current administration. A mere 32 percent of respondents approved of President Biden’s handling of the economy in a Gallup poll last month. Read more
Perhaps no issue has damaged the Biden presidency more than the massive incursions of undocumented migrants across the border. Barely a quarter approve of his handling of the issue — a lower figure than those pertaining to the economy, foreign policy, crime or climate.
The younger generations seem increasingly crazed. A worrying proportion of the young sympathises with those who launch terror attacks against Israel, supports the immediate elimination of fossil fuels or demands the wiping out of gender distinctions. All these positions are troubling in themselves, but they also reflect a deeper malady – a mostly apolitical breakdown of social norms, personal interaction, literacy and logical thinking.
The UN’s COP28 climate conference has always been more political than scientific. But now more than ever, the green agenda looks to be in jeopardy.
The stunning victory of anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders suggests that the notion of a proposed “Muslim ban”, tamping down on immigration from Islamic countries, is no longer outside the realm of political discussion. This movement can only gain steam given the sometimes openly anti-Semitic protests by Muslims in support of the Hamas pogrom.
While Jews often seem clannish to outsiders, the reality is somewhat different: we have always suffered from a divisive streak of self-destructiveness. As far back as the levelling of the Temple and the expulsion from the homeland, Jewish unity has been undermined by both class divisions and theological disagreements. Two thousand years later, though General Titus’s legions may be forgotten, fissures and infighting remain.
Coming from a country that may soon choose to be led by either a cognitively challenged second-rate codger or a vengeful lunatic, one would like to look north, to Canada, for some inspiration.
This is an idea many Canadians no doubt find inspiring. A decade ago, The Globe and Mail published an essay that made the case that Canada was a better role model than the U.S. due to its approach of “mutual accommodation” — what the late Quebec premier Robert Bourassa called “one of the world’s rare and privileged countries in terms of peace, justice, liberty and standard of living.”
American politics is often said to follow James Carville’s notion that ‘it’s the economy, stupid’. And the economy could well still determine the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Yet in a sharply divided country that is being asked to choose between two awful candidates and two increasingly noxious parties, the current crisis in the Middle East could prove pivotal instead.
The war in Gaza might normally be expected to provide a boost for a sitting president. But Joe Biden is so widely perceived as mentally unfit and ineffective that his poll ratings have not improved with his performance during the Middle East crisis (just as they didn’t during the Ukraine crisis). Even as he seeks a middle ground between supporting Israel’s military actions and the ceasefire demanded by his ‘progressive’ anti-Israel allies, he seems to be pleasing very few. Polling suggests that two in three Americans oppose his handling of the crisis.
Biden’s problems run deep. He is the leader of a party that is both in power and providing the primary source of dissent. Virtually all the Congressional opposition to Israel comes from the Democrats’ left flank, whose influence extends far into the bureaucracies of the state, from Congressional staff to White House officials. Of the 20 representatives who voted against the recent motion to condemn anti-Semitism on college campuses, 19 were Democrats. Democratic voters are similarly inclined, with one in five claiming to side more with Hamas than Israel – this is more than twice as many who claim to side with Hamas among Republican or Independent voters.
There is also a generational aspect to the rise in anti-Israel views. Sympathy for Israel tends to be far higher among conservative and older voters, who remember the Holocaust, at least from their parents’ telling, and usually embrace the Judeo-Christian tradition. Contrast their attitudes with those of younger people, who are notably ignorant about history. Little wonder perhaps that voters under 34 are far more likely to support Palestinians and even Hamas over Israel than older voters.
Remarkably, it’s under a Democratic president, not some imagined white nationalist right-winger, that Jewish people in America feel threatened in ways not seen since the 1930s. Jews are finding colleges and public space in places like New York uniquely hostile. In schools, ‘anti-white’ identity politics has now been extended to justify the murder of Jews. Radicalised teachers, whose unions often take Hamas’s side in the conflict, are working to get even primary-school students to join in protests against Jewish businesses.
This disturbing appeasement of Hamas shows how intersectional ideology allows for alliances that are more than a little contradictory. For example, take the gay and trans activists making excuses for Hamas. With its Islamist fundamentalist worldview, this terrorist organisation seems an odd match for supporters of postmodern gender politics. And non-profits like the Tides Foundation, which supports assorted ‘progressive’ causes, appear to have been bankrolling anti-Israel groups attempting to block US military shipments to Israel. There’s also evidence that ostensibly Jewish, vehemently anti-Israel groups, like Jewish Voice for Peace, are funded not only by the ‘Democratic dark money’ of the Tides Foundation but also by the heirs of the old, historical Judeophobic WASP establishment, like the Rockefellers – a family with history that includes close ties with the Nazis and strong support for early 20th-century eugenics research.
Read the rest of this piece at Spiked.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Homepage photo: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
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Gage Skidmore, used here under CC 2.0 License