Thursday’s attack on the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., reflects more than two years of building animosity in this country and worldwide toward Israel, and by extension, the Jewish people.
While officials have not formally called this a terror attack or assigned its motivation to antisemitism, I’ll make that leap. It fits too neatly into an ugly narrative that has been growing in this country since Israel responded to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of its citizens by Hamas.
Opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza opened the door for the public expressions of antisemitism to enter the political mainstream and permeate the culture in ways that would have been disqualifiers just a few years ago.
Rather than being universally shouted down when those anti-Israel sentiments quickly morphed into anti-Jewish vitriol, they were tolerated, ignored and even celebrated on college campuses, in social media chatrooms and in the halls of Congress. Fourteen Democratic members of the House refused last year to vote in favor of a resolution condemning antisemitism.
It is a bipartisan failing.
Right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson has built an audience of more than 3 million followers by blaming Israel for every bad thing that is happening in the world and accusing its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, of pulling the puppet strings of President Donald Trump. Carlson is a nut, obviously, but one who has gained influence over a significant number of decision-makers.
On the left, progressive Democrats have embraced Gaza as their cause celebre, perpetuating the libel that the victims of an intended genocide were actually engaged in genocide themselves. That party’s leaders can’t muster the courage to stand up against such nonsense, so now it has become acceptable.
New York City, home to America’s largest population of Jews, elected as its mayor Zohran Mamdani, a man with a long history of anti-Israel statements. While Mamdani denies he’s an antisemite, he can’t deny sleeping with one. Social media postings by his wife, Rama Duwaji, seemingly sympathizing with the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, have recently come to light.
Antisemitic rhetoric, violence closely tied
The connection between the antisemitic rhetoric and antisemitic violence is becoming hard to deny, even for the most ardent apologists. Thursday’s attack on Temple Israel, against the largest reform synagogue in America, and the school it houses, follows three incidents of gunfire in five days earlier this month against synagogues in Toronto.
For those who would treat this as just another in a string of assaults on houses of worship of all faiths, think about this. When a shooter drove a vehicle into a Mormon church in Flint last year and set the building afire, no nationwide alerts went out for Mormon facilities nationwide to lock down. But Thursday, Jewish synagogues everywhere in the United States were warned to lock their doors.
Haters have always found a million reasons to hate Jews, and now they have found one more.
The joint U.S.-Israel war against Iran has raised new claims that America is doing Netanyahu’s bidding.
Opponents will say that had we not gone to war against Iran, this failed attempt to murder schoolchildren would never have happened.
A more realistic view is that it justifies the dismantling of the Iranian regime. The evil that found its way to West Bloomfield on Thursday has its headquarters in Tehran. It won’t end until we cut off the head of the beast.
Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of the Detroit New.
