That only took nearly two months.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States — acknowledged the upswing in anti-Semitism in the United States since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
Not only that, but he was willing to finally name where that anti-Semitism is mostly coming from: his own side.
According to The Associated Press, the New York Democrat’s “remarks during a nearly-45 minute speech on the Senate floor come at a sensitive time in the Israel-Hamas war” and as “the left-wing of the party has demonstrated a surge in support for Palestinians.”
“Schumer is carefully navigating the moment, but said it was time for a clear-throated denouncement of the antisemitism that has flared in the U.S. and Europe ever since Hamas militants stormed into Israel last month,” the wire service reported Wednesday.
That time was actually much, much closer to the Oct. 7 attacks than it is to now, but never mind.
In impassioned remarks before the upper chamber, Schumer said Jewish Americans feel “left alone” by the rise in anti-Semitism and that anti-Semitic elements were “taking advantage of the pro-Palestinian movement to espouse hatred and bigotry toward Jewish people,” The Washington Post reported.
Among those being taken advantage of? “Young people” who are “unknowingly aiding and abetting their cause,” the majority leader said.
In other words, all of those college students the Democrats are counting on in swing states in 2024. Yeah, they might be doing the blatant anti-Semitism “unknowingly,” an emotional sop to the base if there ever was one.
But I digress, because the content of his speech — if not the timing — wasn’t necessarily terrible.
“I am speaking up to issue a warning informed by lessons of history, too often forgotten,” Schumer said.
“No matter where we stand on the war in Gaza, all of us must condemn anti-Semitism with full-throated clarity wherever we see it before it metastasizes into something even worse,” he said.
The senator went on to say that “rather than call out this dangerous behavior for what it is, we see so many of our friends and fellow citizens — particularly young people who yearn for justice — unknowingly aiding and abetting their cause.”
Indeed, Schumer talked about the disappointment he and other Jews have felt regarding the left’s tack on Israel after the Hamas attacks, considering this was the group “most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers.”
“Not long ago, many of us marched together for black and brown lives,” Schumer said, according to The New York Times.
“We stood against anti-Asian hatred. We protested bigotry against the LGBTQ community. We fought for reproductive justice, out of the recognition that injustice against one oppressed group is injustice against all.”
Alas, Schumer said he’s discovered that “apparently, in the eyes of some, that principle does not extend to the Jewish people.”
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But, in an interview after the remarks, he was loath to condemn individuals — or anyone, really.
“I’m a progressive; I’ve had lots of good relationships with all the people who are protesting, but I also feel the urgency — the Jewish people are anguished,” he said, according to the Times.
“I had an obligation to many places: to the Jewish people, to my fellow progressives.”
As for the progressives tacitly implicitly or explicitly taking the side of Hamas? “I had to say it, because I don’t think they know it. I don’t think they’re of bad will,” the majority leader said.
So, Schumer is finally willing to call out anti-Semitism on the left — but not any singular anti-Semite in particular.
If he were called to answer for the behavior of any particular lawmaker, pundit or activist, he’s given himself the easy off-ramp of claiming they didn’t mean it in “bad will.”
There were just some anti-Semitic vultures hovering overhead the great progressive mass of activists, and the naïve protesters and officials were all thrown off by just a few bigoted carrion-scavengers swooping down and using their great movement for untoward purposes.
This account essentially denies the obvious anti-Semitism within the progressive movement for decades, even while it claims to condemn it.
Schumer can’t have it both ways.
Either own that the wave of anti-Semitism we’ve seen since the attacks on Israel has been from members of his party — and those members can specifically be named — or back away from the argument entirely. Period.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
