The “Letter to America” is filled with attacks on Jews as collectively enslaving Americans through Jewish control of money and the economy. These stereotypes echo through the centuries and somehow unite radically opposing ideologies, which also share contempt for the Judeo-Christian values underpinning our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
In 1844, Karl Marx wrote: “What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money .... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist.”
The timing of the Bin Laden surge in popularity is no mystery but follows from the shocking support for the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, generating expressions of Jew hatred in America reminiscent of 1930s Germany.
We have watched the so-called Progressive movement leaping to the defense of the perpetrators and showcasing its twisted take on social justice. Although some progressives pretend not to understand what territory “from the River to the Sea” refers to, many of the protesters are explicitly calling for the destruction of Israel by any means, including and especially through barbaric violence.
These progressives, lost in their obsession with group identity politics, relentlessly categorize the world into the oppressors and the oppressed, the victimizers and the victimized. They have cast Israel squarely into the role of evil colonizer, occupying land that they claim rightfully belongs to the Palestinians.
But here’s where it gets, to use a word that progressives love, problematic: Jews have thrived despite having a history of suffering and being discriminated against as minorities. They are living proof that success isn’t actually reserved for those born into wealth and privilege. This reality simply doesn’t jibe with the progressives’ doom-and-gloom narrative that economic hurdles are too high to overcome and must be countered with redistribution from the rich to the poor. Individuals have no responsibility for their own fate, and the failures of some groups are falsely attributed to the success of others.
Israel itself is a slap in the face to the progressive fairy tale. From its humble beginnings, Israel has pulled itself up by its bootstraps, welcoming and integrating Jewish refugees from all over. This nation didn’t just reject socialism; it went on to make groundbreaking achievements: in tech, including cybersecurity when it needed defense, and environmental science, such as desalination when it needed water. No wonder the progressives are green with envy.
Their twisted view paints Israel as the villain in the Arab–Israeli saga, ignoring the countless olive branches Israel extended for peace and the outright refusal of many Arab nations to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. The economic dysfunction of the Palestinian Authority resulting from massive corruption, the dedication of resources toward destroying Israel, and the refusal to resettle refugees is blamed on the Jews.
The progressives’ response to Hamas and their entire stance on the Arab–Israeli conflict is riddled with contradictions. Could it get any more ludicrous when the progressives champion Hamas, a group that stands against everything they claim to value, including LGBT and women’s rights? Talk about selective outrage.
The celebration of Hamas’s savagery as a justified response to the collective guilt of the Jews isn’t just a problem for Israel. The support for Bin Laden reveals that that path leads to a fundamental rejection of America, and even revolutionary violence to fix and atone for our perceived shortcomings.
It’s particularly worrying that this support for radicalism and revolutionary violence is most prevalent on college campuses.
It’s high time that progressives, and all Americans for that matter, take a hard look in the mirror and get back to the basics of individual and communal responsibility that are the bedrock of free societies and America’s continued existence as a constitutional republic and beacon of liberty.