“Many Jews involved with progressive causes are increasingly feeling this tug, if not outright war, between their Jewish and political identities,” wrote antisemitism historian Deborah E. Lipstadt in her 2019 book Antisemitism: Here and Now. President Joe Biden’s decision to resume American aid to the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority (PA) on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day only highlighted this ongoing conflict for Jewish Biden supporters such as Lipstadt.
Lipstadt in her book strove to give an impartial review of modern antisemitism across the ideological spectrum, but her evident political biases marred otherwise insightful analysis. Particularly her antipathy towards Donald Trump stood out, as she equated this uniquely pro-Israel president with the notoriously anti-Semitic British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. “I don’t know if either of these men is an anti-Semite,” she wrote, but “both have facilitated the spread of antisemitism.”
This Trump-Corbyn “comparison is so flawed as to be absurd,” correctly countered conservative Jewish writer Ben Cohen wrote in a 2019 review of Lipstadt’s book. As he explained:
Trump may be guilty of occasionally encouraging or even enabling anti-Semites in small ways, but Corbyn is an anti-Semite, and one with a public and considered fondness for the world’s most vicious and bloodthirsty haters of Jews.
As Lipstadt’s own book documents for quizzical readers, Corbyn’s scandalous record includes defending viciously anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and calling Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists “friends.” By contrast, she discussed certain truly troubling Trump statements, including his 2015 comments during the Republican presidential primaries to the Republican Jewish Coalition. “None of this, however,” Cohen accurately assessed of Trump, “places him remotely in the same corner as Corbyn, who is blatantly guilty not only of enabling but of fomenting anti-Semitism as an integral element of his ideological worldview.”
Lipstadt in her book offered a leftist apologia for Corbyn’s antisemitism. “Fundamental to Corbyn’s political weltanschauung is an automatic—critics might call it knee-jerk—sympathy for anyone who is or appears to be oppressed or an underdog.” Thus she concluded:
It is doubtful that Corbyn deliberately seeks out anti-Semites to associate with and to support. But it seems that when he encounters them, their Jew-hatred is irrelevant as long as their other positions—on class, race, capitalism, the role of the state, and Israel/Palestine-are to his liking.
By contrast, Lipstadt demonized Trump as a bigot, even though President Trump actually denounced white supremacists, anti-Semites, and other extremists on numerous occasions. “Trump was, and still seems to be, unwilling to castigate, much less mildly criticize, actions by the white supremacists, racists, and anti-Semites who voted for him and who continue to support him,” she wrote without substantiation. In this context rang hollow her qualification that “I’m not suggesting, of course, that they represent all of Trump’s supporters.”
Bizarrely, Lipstadt in her anti-Trump screeds overlooked the history of openly racist Democratic presidents such as Woodrow Wilson. “In the United States, for the first time in many decades—perhaps for the first time ever—these haters believe that they have sympathetic allies in the White House.” Trump “has not disabused them of that notion,” she wrote, even though anti-Semites such as the perpetrator of the 2018 mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue repeatedly denounced Trump for being too pro-Jewish.
A vaguely defined “alt-right” loomed large in Lipstadt’s book. She defined Milo Yiannopoulos, a pro-Israel, ex-gay man who once “married” a black man, as among this hateful “movement’s ideologues.” His former employer, the conservative Breitbart News (where this author has written), and its former editor, the Trump adviser Steve Bannon, also drew Lipstadt’s scorn. Without any particular examples, she criticized:
There is no credible evidence that Bannon is himself an anti-Semite, but it is extremely distressing that right-wing Jewish groups that trumpet his support for Israel ignored the racism, anti-immigrant, and white nationalist views promulgated by Breitbart News when he ran it.
Again without citing evidence, Lipstadt fretted that under Trump “alt-right” members “have managed in recent years to establish direct links to people with influence, including those in high-level government positions.” In addition to his pro-Israel record, Trump strengthened federal government efforts against college antisemitism, won increased black support with his economic growth policies, and appointed the first openly gay man to cabinet rank. Yet she counterfactually wrote:
Trump’s anti-Semitic followers believe that his dog whistles give them free rein to openly acknowledge their contempt for racial minorities, Muslims, homosexuals, and Jews. They are convinced, not without reason, that they have had a direct impact on government policy.
Any anti-Trump rant would be incomplete without myths about the violent 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, protests. Trump had rightfully condemned “many sides” here among battling white supremacists and leftist extremists such as Antifa, whose destructiveness has only become clearer in subsequent years. Yet Lipstadt whitewashed the latter by condemning Trump for “moral equivalency between racists and the counterdemonstrators.”
Lipstadt also promoted in her book and subsequently the ubiquitous Charlottesville hoax that Trump had praised racist demonstrators there as “very fine people.” While condemning these racists, he had used these words in general reference to people debating and protesting on both sides in Charlottesville over a Robert E. Lee Confederate war memorial. But Lipstadt scolded Trump for praising “‘very fine people’ marching with the white supremacist protesters.”
Concerning Islamic antisemitism, Lipstadt stood on firmer ground. She recognized that “within sectors of the Muslim community, particularly in Europe, there is endemic antisemitism” and some Muslims “have been raised to hate Jews.” She observed:
Various studies, including one conducted in 2017 by the University of Oslo, have shown that attacks on European Jews, particularly physical assaults, come in the main from radicalized Muslims. Interviews with German Muslims, including well-educated professionals, feature comments about Jews that sound as though they have come directly from the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Brief hints of this antisemitism’s historical basis in Islamic doctrines, which define the subjugated dhimmi status of Jews and other non-Muslims under Islamic rule, appear in Lipstadt’s book. Under various European and Islamic religious discriminations, “Jews were hated because they refused to accept Christianity and, later, Islam.” Jews had “centuries-long second-class treatment in Islamic lands” and even today Muslim-majority states are rife with discrimination against Jews and other religious minorities. In Israel, Islamic rages arise when Jews “return to their ancient homeland, which was for centuries part of the Islamic empire.”
Rather than critically analyze this history, Lipstadt offered more politically correct explanations for Islamic antisemitism. She suggested that European Muslim antisemitism “is part of a larger problem of integration” and referenced not Islamic, but “leftist antisemitism,” when analyzing the notorious Palestinian-American political activist Linda Sarsour. Meanwhile Lipstadt invoked the totalitarian neologism “Islamophobia” amidst her warnings against “demonization of Muslims.”
Lipstadt also insightfully examines economic warfare against Israel in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, a “direct descendant of Marxist antisemitism and anti-Zionism.” A key BDS demand is a “right of return” to Israel of millions of descendants of some 600,000 Arabs who fled what became Israel in its 1948 independence war. This demographic destruction of Israel’s Jewish state, she wrote, or “negation of Jewish nationhood is a form of antisemitism, if not in intent, then certainly in effect.”
Irrespective of practical political effects, Lipstadt noted, BDS aims “to toxify Israel” by presenting it as uniquely evil among the world’s nations. In American academia, this “impact of BDS on Jewish students is quite real. Jewish students running for office in student government have also been uniquely targeted by Israel-bashers.” This demonstrates that a “myopic focus on Israel is anti-Semitic in consequence, if not in intent.”
Lipstadt’s anti-BDS stance makes ironic her acclamation of Biden’s victory days after the November 2020 presidential elections. In Biden she saw a “leader of the country who will unequivocally condemn antisemitism and extremism.” Yet his numerous anti-Israel administration appointees have included BDS supporters.
Such matters must appear secondary to Lipstadt, whose apocalyptic denunciations of Trump during and after the 2020 elections angered many Jews with what they condemned as Holocaust-trivializations. She helped launch on September 29, 2020, a Jewish Democratic Council of America campaign advertisement that compared Trump’s presidency to the 1930s rise of Nazi Germany. She later coauthored a Washington Post editorial that analogized Trump’s “democracy denial” challenges to the election results to “Holocaust denial.” Jewish legal scholar Nathan Lewin castigated this “shameful Holocaust denial” in a “rant with a blatant political bias,
Israeli Jews, 70 percent of whom supported Trump’s reelection in surveys, have greater fear of Biden resuming the Middle East policies of President Barack Obama, whom Lipstadt supported in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. Biden, for example, has already lifted sanctions imposed by Trump on the dangerous, nuclear-proliferating Islamic Republic of Iran. Biden also seems to agree with Lipstadt’s hackneyed analysis in her book that the “current situation in the West Bank is untenable” and the “most reasonable solution would be two states,” Israel and Palestine, with secure borders. By contrast, Israeli Jews have personally experienced how Islam’s “endemic antisemitism” precisely in the Muslim-majority Middle East has only turned Israeli “land for peace” territorial withdrawals into jihadist bases for attacks on Israel.
“Fight the good fight,” Lipstadt penned in autographed book copies she distributed to a November 19, 2019, audience at the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, including this author. Yet many would agree with the book reviewer Cohen that her analysis is unfortunately “deeply unsatisfactory” in places, such as her book endnotes, where she uncritically relies upon Southern Poverty Law Center leftist smear merchants. “Although she is by no means blind to left-wing anti-Semitism, her eyesight must be adjudged impaired—as indeed it also is on the subject of Islamist anti-Semitism,” Cohen wrote in 2019 in words only more valid today.
Walter Sieruk says
This jihadwatch makes mention of the Muslim political activist , Linda Sarsour, who in American is very anti-Jewish and likewise very much against the Jewish State of Israel is therefore ,in essence, extremely un-American.
As the former US President, William Howard Taft, who wisely declared in a speech declared “Antisemitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out . It has no place in America.”
Brando says
Deborah Lipstadt has Gone Crazy in her Irrational Hatred of Trump, I respect the Lipstadt of the past,the one who had a famous litigation against HOLOCAUST Denier and historian DAVID IRVING in 1996.
It was in the UK and she had to PROVE the Holocaust happened,burden of proof was on her,and Irving was His Own Lawyer:
She wrote a book about it:”History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier” (2005)
A BLUEPILLER
There are people like her who are Redpill/Blackpill about some things but not all. The Redpill/Blackpill teaches to use a METHOD
for Learning How to THINK, it is COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS.
FOR EXAMPLE
How can we know Socialism/Communism/Leftist Economic Ideas are BAD? Let us consider 2 Cases,with TWO countries:
1.With people of the Same Language.
2.The Same Culture and Common History
3.Even the Same RELIGION ( not one Muslim,the other Hindu or Christian)
4.Even the Same Geography
KOREA ( Confucian culture ) and GERMANY
1.North Korea and East Germany were ruled by Leftists,Communists who Imposed STATE Control of the Economy( Socialist Economy)
and a TOTALITARIAN political system.
2.While South Korean and West Germany went for CAPITALISM ( free market) and also DEMOCRACY as a Political System.
It was in the latter cases that the Result was Economic Prosperity and a High Quality of Life.
Lipstadt as a Scholar should know better,should use Comparative Analysis
gravenimage says
+1
IQ al Rassooli says
Throughout history, the Jews suffered – more than any other ethnicity – of self-hating Jews or Jews in total denial of facts and reality.
Deborah Lipstadt is no exception. In reality, she is one of the foremost examples of ‘Jews in Denial’ possible, for equating Donald Trump with Jeremy Corbyn. This alone, proves her total lack of fair mindedness, morality and objectivity, thus trashing any of her opinions.
By the way, nowhere in recorded history was there any Antisemitism. The historical record shows very clearly, relentless Jew HATRED by Christians and Muslims (never by Hindus and Buddhists). Hitler always ranted about Juden!Juden!Juden and had great respect for the Arabs (Semites), Muhammad and Islam.
On the one hand, almost 70% of so called ‘liberal’ Jews, would rather bury their head in the sand than admit, that the worst Jew haters in the 21st century are Muslims, not White Christian supremacists.
On the other hand, the foremost supporters of Trump, the Constitution, Free Speech and Controlled Borders, were and are, the 30% of observant Jews.
These ‘leftist’ Jews – because not one of them ever bothered to read Muhammad’s Quran – are very unwittingly and most definitely stupidly, supporting the very Sharia compliant Arabs and Muslims (Ilhan Omar; Linda Sarsour and others) whose HATRED of Jews is sanctioned and incited by Allah’s – the god of Muslims in Muhammad’s Quran and Sunna – Sharia.
They are so blinkered, they are unknowingly but most assuredly and tragically, paving the way to their own destruction in the near future.
IQ al Rassooli
Rarely says
“Anti-Semitism” is defined, and generally accepted, as “anti-Jewish” and not “Anti-Arab” even though Arabs are semites.
As usual Jews are attacked by the far left AND the far right as well as much of the middle. It is usually unclear where to align oneself.
Your comments, aside from being very ignorant, are bigoted in the extreme.
somehistory says
“The historical record shows very clearly, relentless Jew HATRED by Christians ”
I strongly disagree with this statement you made.
The Jews as a group…esp the religious leaders… hated the Jews who became Christians and killed many of them.
Jesus commanded that His followers “love” those who hate them. This is not the kind of “love” that causes a person to want to associate with another, but the kind of love that our God and His Son have for humankind…a love based on Principle and not doing things to hurt…”Do to others what you wish them to do to you.”
God gives “rain” to the wicked…He provides “sunshine” for the wicked. Jesus told us to be like our “Father in Heaven.”
A True Christian recognizes that Jesus Christ, all of His Apostles, and many of his disciples were all Jews. One can disapprove of the conduct and teaching of others without hating them.
Christians do know, of course, that the religious leaders….the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin Court, asked Pilate to put Jesus to death. And when the crowds were asked if they wanted Jesus Christ “released” of if they wanted the thief released, they chose the thief and wanted Jesus to be put to death.
Pilate “washed his hands”…trying to remove his guilt for his part in putting an innocent man to death ,… and had Jesus whipped and murdered.
But, we also know that present day Jews are not responsible for what was done two thousand years ago. Many Jews have become “believers” just as many back then did.
Rarely says
somehistory.
You object to the comment that the record shows “relentless Jew hatred by Christians” even though it is clearly historically accurate. Anti-Semitism is very much a European affliction.
You then invent the idea that the Jews, as a group, “hated the Jews who became Christians and killed many of them”. I would be interested in knowing where that idea came from.
somehistory says
rarely right,
I didn’t “invent” anything.
In the Bible, it clearly says that the Jews considered the Jews that became Christians were leaving God and some killed Stephen by stoning, they put James “to the sword,” they put Peter in prison, Just as Jesus said they would…these are just some of the times that the Jews killed Christians who were also Jews. Paul was also arrested, but taken to Rome as he was a Roman citizen.
Peter and John were “ordered to stop preaching” about Jesus by the Jewish Court.
And…a True Christian is not the same as those who claim to be Christian but do contrary to what Jesus commanded.
Bible readers can find these facts readily enough.
mortimer says
Deborah Lipstadt’s GRATUITOUS SLANDER against Donald Trump is immoral, unsupported and shameful. You don’t simply throw dirt at someone because you don’t like them.
Deborah Lipstadt would not like to slandered.
Jim says
She sounds to me a bit like a variety of Democrat and Biden supporters, including ones who are not interested in the issues of Israel and anti-Semitism, but say bad things about Trump and positive ones about Biden, based on biased cherry-picking and ignoring most of the facts. They are interested in other topics but are similar to her in wanting to bash Trump and Republicans generally in every possible way.
Cock Paul says
Jew or non-Jew, I hate political correctness..
mortimer says
Lipstadt’s leftist indoctrination teaches her that globalism is ‘good’ and nationalism is ‘bad’ … but as a Jew, she wants to have a Jewish NATIONAL HOME … there is the contradiction.
Lipstadt demands that all countries RELINQUISH their NATIONALISM … every country but Israel.
somehistory says
I’s so amazing…but a person’s inside shows so clearly on the outside. She actually looks like a fool, an idiot, a pretender to greatness.
Princess says
Some could argue that the timing was just coincidental, but it does seem to me as if the Bidan administration is doing things purposefully, like resuming aid to the PA on Holocaust Remembrance Day, or leaking Israel’s alleged military operations in the region. It seems to be a pattern that is being repeated as has been previously done with the Obama administration.
L. Mayor says
Ann Coulter once wrote that “leftism is a mental illness”. Ms. Lipstadt is proof that Ann was correct.
Patrick White says
People like Lipslats have rendered words like ‘anti-Semite’, ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobic’ utterly meaningless.
Um… you go, girl.
Giacomo Latta says
”I don’t know if either of these men is an anti-Semite,” she wrote, but “both have facilitated the spread of antisemitism.”
If you don’t know anything then why are you writing books on the matter.
Lorensacho says
Sorry Harrod, Deborah Lipstadt has more credentials than you. She single handedly broke the back of Holocaust denial. What exactly have you done for the Jews?
somehistory says
Must not have been a bad “break” of the “back of Holocaust denial,” because the denial goes on….and on and on…Just ask the rulers, the mullahs of Iran, or the pa in the Gaza, or the mozlum dictator in Turkey.
What mozlum will admit that the Holocaust happened and that they had a big dirty hand in it?
When they aren’t denying it, they are blaming the Jews for all that happened.
And the mozlums have been the main ones to deny, deny and deny the evil
Mr. Harrod has written some compelling articles exposing islam.
what’s-her-face, subject of this article, says she “doesn’t know,” but then proceeds to say…which means she’s lying. Liars are losers.
gravenimage says
Lorensacho, she may have debated well in arguing for the historicity of the Holocaust–but as Somehistory niotes, your belief that Holocaust denial has been ended is sadly mistaken.
gravenimage says
Deborah Lipstadt’s Distorted Antisemitism Definition
……………………
Sadly, Lipstadt is a dhimmi tool.