Confronting Jew Hatred on Daily Kos: Are They Nazis?

Michael L.

This was originally published at the Front Page Magazine blog on July 30, 2010.

Heck, I had not even quit smoking by that point.

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Well, no. Of course, they are not Nazis. That is, they are not members of the National Socialist German Workers Party (that’s not quite possible, now is it?) nor are they modern day Neo-Nazi white supremacists. They are, for the most part, leftists who claim to hate war, favor environmental regulation, women’s rights, gay rights, and the entire hodge-podge of issues, including an anti-racist agenda, that makes up what we call the “progressive movement.”

And, yet, on the foremost website devoted to electing Democrats, with over 250,000 registered users, they allow a malicious and vocal minority to drive the Israel-Palestine discussion in such a way as to create hatred, and thus violence, toward Jews. As if that’s not bad enough in itself, they also do so in a manner that echoes anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda from the 1930s. Again, my criticism of Daily Kos is not that they’re a bunch of anti-Semites, but that they provide a venue for a bunch of anti-Semites.

These people represent the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic party, yet they comfortably share a “home” with people who are little more than modern day Nazis.

Just as the Nazis demonized Jews, so many “Kossacks” demonize the Jewish state, its people, and by extension, Jews, in general. After all, if Israel is a Demon State, what does this say about the vast majority of diaspora Jews that support it? It can only mean one thing, that Jews are inherently evil. (Of course, they also demonize and dehumanize conservatives, particularly of the Christian rural variety, but that’s a whole other story, I suppose.)

Here, let me give you an example from just yesterday by someone with the moniker Flyswatterbanjo:

It seems more and more Americans have become well-versed in the particulars of Israel’s founding, including the ethnic cleasing of 750,000 Palestinians, its 43-year occupation and the criminality attendant to that enterprise, its tactics, its danger to the United States, and the role of our own government in propagating the injustices going on there. These commenters know about and mentioned the savage war on Lebanon in 2006, Israel dropping white phosphorus on UN schools and hospitals during the assault on Gaza in 2009, the blockade of Gaza, the Flotilla raid, General Petraeus’ warning that our interests are harmed by our perceived favoritism of Israel, Netanyahu’s insults to our President and Vice-President, the amount of aid we give to Israel annually.

The writer suggests that Israel’s founding included the “ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians.” What he fails to tell his readers is that the Arabs of the British mandate launched a genocidal civil war against the Jews in November of 1947. By leaving out this critical piece of context he seeks to demonize the Jewish people as ruthless beasts who, for no reason whatsoever, marched on the perfectly innocent, huddled Palestinians who wanted nothing more than to live in peace with their neighbors. It is a lie of omission designed to demonize Jews. Just as the Nazis claimed that Jews of the Holocaust generation provoked war for their own nefarious ends, so this Flyswatterbanjo person claims that Jews of that very generation did so, as well. He is, in effect, repeating Hitler’s talking points.

He references the war in Lebanon without breathing a word concerning Hezbollah and its affection for launching missiles at Israeli civilian targets. He references the blockade of Gaza, without mentioning the 2005 Israeli pull-out of that region, nor Hamas’ own affection for killing Israeli civilians. He references the recent flotilla nonsense, without mentioning that the Mavi Marmara contained violent Jihadis seeking martyrdom through the time honored method of attacking Jews.

In these ways, and more, this writer is demonizing the Jewish people in a manner if not as bad, than almost as bad, as the Nazis did in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. During a period of rising anti-Jewish violence, and while actual Jihadis are joining forces with western leftists in opposition to the United States and Israel, he is stoking the flames of hatred toward the Jewish people via the Jewish state. And he’s doing it on the number one Democratic blog around.

Meanwhile, Markos Moulitsas, the owner of Daily Kos, remains mum, allowing the hatred to be spread on a daily basis. It’s not that Moulitsas is a fascist – because he is most definitely not one – but he allows the dehumanization of the Jewish people (as well as Christian conservatives) a prominent place on his blog. And I would suggest that dehumanization is at the very heart of what fascism is and was.

And, to my constant horror, these are Democrats.

Remind me again why are so many Jews are Democrats?

Ah, heck, you do not need to remind me. I was a registered Democrat up until about 5 minutes ago, myself. The problem, of course, is that most Jewish Democrats are progressives and thus support the Democratic party.

 If they had the slightest idea what was simmering just beneath the surface of that party, I promise you, most would run screaming into the hills.