The temple of false gods is quivering, and the
consensus is that sooner or later, it will crumble the way that a cookie
crumble. How do we know that? Well, it often happens that our “sixth sense”
kicks in and alerts us to the strong possibility that something of consequence
is about to happen, but we cannot tell what it is.
What we hear are Jewish voices engaged in mutual
recrimination. What we see are Jewish operatives jockeying to take new
positions. And most importantly, we see prominent non-Jewish actors run to hide
in shelters they hope will protect them when the temple comes crashing down,
and the responsibilities are attributed to those who could have done something
to save it but did not.
When you read Jonathan S. Tobin, you get a sense of
how much he is contributing to the reality that Jews are pointing fingers of
recrimination at each other. He does it in spades in the article he wrote under
the title: “Why the left won't tolerate liberal Zionists,” and the subtitle:
“The 'Columbia Journalism Review' attack on 'The Forward' marks a new low in
the way intellectual elites are legitimizing anti-Semitism.” The article was
published on February 7, 2020 in the Jewish News Syndicate.
What happened that prompted Tobin to write, is that
the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) published an article by Mairav Zonstein
who used to freelance for The Forward and stopped because of disagreement over
the publication's shift in editorial policy. But when much more than expected
had shifted at The Forward, including the folding of its print edition and the
dismissal of its old staff, the story became too important to ignore. This is
why CJR commissioned Zonstein to tell the story of what happened.
What Mairav Zonstein did was write for the historical
record, a straightforward and dispassionate story of what happened as
accurately and exhaustively as she could. But that did not sit well with
Jonathan Tobin who would have liked her to sweep under the rug, bits of truths
such as the following:
“The Forward today embrac[es] its newfound role as
policemen, prosecutor, judge, and jury deciding what is and isn't anti-Semitism
… the paper crossed a line. It elected to take up the role at a time when
accusations of anti-Semitism are being weaponized to bludgeon critics of Israel
… Israel-Palestine is the tip of the spear being exploited to erode free speech
and the cat's paw inciting progressives to attack their own”.
That quote came in the article that Mairav Zonszein
wrote under the title: “What happened to The Forward?” and the subtitle: “How
America's Jewish newspaper lost the left.” It was published on February 5, 2020
in The Columbia Journalism Review. And it was in response to this kind of rare
and honest clarity that Jonathan Tobin spilled out his angry bile as follows:
“While The Forward has often been deeply and often
unfairly critical of Israel, if the center of gravity in the liberal Jewish
world has come this far to the left, then American Jewry is in deeper trouble
than many of us had thought. Perhaps even more important reason to be alarmed
is that the CRJ's decision to publish such a flawed and biased article
indicates that liberal elites are now seeking to legitimize not merely anti-Zionism,
but open anti-Semitism”.
So that's where we're at these days … we're at the
point where Jews are accusing Jews of conspiring with non-Jews to spread
anti-Semitism by revealing that die-hard Jewish fanatics are using
anti-Semitism as a weapon to silence their critics. It was therefore inevitable
that non-Jewish politicians who deal with Jews in the discharge of their duty,
should sense that something has gone bad and was getting worse by the day.
Smart enough to know that if a final explosion was to
come –– as it has for Jews without fail since time immemorial –– there will be
authentic and fake Jewish survivors who will seek compensation. To get as much
of it as possible for as long as they can, they will cast the net of suspicion
on the largest possible number of so-called culprits, and accuse them of
conspiring to holocaust the Jews, or knowing what was happening but doing
nothing to stop it.
For this reason, the non-Jews whose daily work brings
them into contact with Jews, go out of their way these days to create a record
that will go down in history as proof they were the friends of the Jews who
gave them everything they asked for and more.
The irony is that the so-called friends of the Jews
know deep down that by privileging the Jews, they add to the chances of
bringing about the anti-Jewish explosion about which they will want to be
exonerated.