Opinion

Bluewashing Jews Out Of The Rainbow

Abraham H. Miller Emeritus Professor, University of Cincinnati
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Chicago’s annual ‘Dyke March” has long included Jewish participants and Jewish symbols. Not this year.  Jews were ejected from the parade because the rainbow flags they carried bore the Star of David. 

Under the leftist doctrine of “intersectionality,” all oppressed people must stand together. The Palestinians have managed to win the war for the Left’s coveted status of an oppressed people – casting Israel in the role of the oppressor.  Except that the flags at issue symbolized the religion of Judaismnot the state of Israel.

Thus, the predisposition of leftist identity politics toward anti-Semitism could now flourish and find justification under the cover of intersectionality, where Zionism is racism. The anti-Semitism of leftist student politics on campus has now moved on to the streets.

No mass movement has ever arisen without designating an “other” – the people to be hated.  Philosopher Eric Hoffer, the acclaimed student of mass movements, noted that hatred is the great unifier, the essential glue that holds a movement together.

Oppressed people are like abused children. Many grow up to be like their abusers. So, it is not surprising that a movement that scorns and vilifies “breeders,” in their private moments as the “other,” is not totally immune to hatred and the irrationality on which it feeds.

Israel is the one country in the Middle East where a gay person need not fear execution or imprisonment for sexual orientation. While the American military was dealing with the convoluted policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” gays were openly serving in the Israeli Defense Forces without discrimination.

Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are the only cities in the Middle East that hold gay pride events under the protective eye of the state.

According to the intersectionality script written by anti-Semites for leftist identity movements, Israel isn’t doing this in the interests of human rights and decency; Israel’s motive for embracing the cause of gays is to deflect attention away from the plight of Palestinians. This absurd idea, called pinkwashing, is now as integral a part of leftist ideology as is intersectionality and its corresponding anti-Semitism.

Once people strongly embrace a mass movement, ideology replaces rationality. Reality is what the movement designates it to be.

In the identity politics classes in our colleges, there is the absurd notion of “true truth.”  A true truth is what an identity group believes. It is immaterial that even a passing acquaintance with reality shows it to be false. If the group believes a narrative, it is true.

The organizers of the Dyke March, who said that a Jewish star superimposed on a rainbow banner frightened people, would have no problem saluting a Palestinian flag in the same parade. But gays marching in Ramallah or Gaza City would have a life expectancy of five minutes or less as the ensuing mob debated whether the gays should be summarily hanged, or tortured first.

The irony is lost on many in the gay community because is essential dogma. It has achieved the mystical status of true truth.

What the incident at the Dyke March tells Jews is that they have no place in the intersectionality club because they’re the enemy. The Palestinians have won the battle for victimhood, and Jews stand as antithetical to progressive causes.

In the words of Linda Sarsour, a prominent leftist activist and strong voice for Sharia, no Zionist can be a feminist. The absurdity of a Sharia-embracing advocate for feminism deciding who can be a feminist shows the irrationality intersectionality has been able to inculcate among progressives.

The Jews have long been society’s canary in the coal mine. And the anti-Semitism of the Left, whether on the streets of Chicago or college campuses, has already evolved into a street thuggery that sets fires, destroys property, and physically attacks the opposition.

On campus, Jews must pass an anti-Zionism test to participate in student politics. How long before conservatives and Republicans will be asked to pass a litmus test on health care, federal funding, and immigration before grudgingly being given a seat at the political table? Remember, what begins with the Jews never ends with the Jews. 

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the Haym Salomon Center. Follow him @salomoncenter