I Now Fear Antisemitism On The Left More Than The Right

Antisemitism is a logical consequence of militant identity politics. And it is getting scarier by the day.

by Ben Cohen

During a conversation with a high school teacher in my neighborhood recently, I asked what the demographics of the school he taught at were like. “It’s pretty evenly mixed,” he told me. “Around 30% black, 30% Latino, and the rest white/Asian.”

I was actually inquiring about the socio-economic demographics of the school, not the racial mix. But as I have learned over my years in the US, that absolutely everything is about race. My friend followed up by saying that his school had some kids whose parents were diplomats, and others who were living below the poverty line — the implication being economic class was determined by racial category (black and Latino kids = poor, and white and Asian = wealthy). There was also the implication that black and Latino kids are minorities, whereas white/Asian are not.

His answer was quite revealing on a number of levels, but primarily because it highlights the astonishing influence of racial identity politics in America’s education institutions. My friend wasn’t saying anything he believed was radical, but when you look at some of the assumptions, a very different picture emerges.

The racialization of every aspect of American life is, according to the identity politics left, about addressing racial inequity. This is no doubt a real phenomenon that I believe does need addressing, but as recent events at Columbia university suggest, the medicine has become worse than the disease.

The Columbia fiasco

As Israel’s war in Gaza continues, protests in America’s universities are growing in size and militancy. Columbia University is ground zero for the anti-Israel movement, and the elite college is now on the verge of shutting down in person classes due to the ferocity of the protests. As CNN reports:

Columbia University is facing a full-blown crisis heading into Passover as a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home and tense confrontations on campus sparked condemnation from the White House and New York officials.

The atmosphere is so charged that Columbia officials announced students can attend classes and even possibly take exams virtually starting Monday – the first day of Passover, a major Jewish holiday set to begin in the evening.

Tensions at Columbia, and many universities, have been high ever since the October 7 terror attack on Israel by Hamas. However, the situation at Columbia escalated in recent days after university officials testified before Congress last week about antisemitism on campus and pro-Palestinian protests on and near campus surged.

While a majority of the protestors are not antisemitic or engaging in violence, the reports of antisemitism and physically threatening behavior towards Jews are numerous. Reports the NY Times:

Reports of antisemitic harassment by protesters surfaced on social media late Saturday. A video posted on X shows a masked protester outside the Columbia gates carrying a Palestinian flag who appears to chant “Go back to Poland!” One Columbia student wrote on social media that some protesters had stolen an Israeli flag from students and tried to burn it, adding that Jewish students were splashed with water.

The protestors have been chanting “From the river to the sea,” and others have been caught making explicit threats like this:

The al-Qassam brigades are Hamas’s armed wing

This is creating an extremely threatening environment for Jewish and Israeli students at the university who feel antisemitism on campus has spiraled completely out of control. This also reflects a growing trend on campuses around the country where antisemitism is so rife that over 70% of Jewish students this academic year say they have been exposed to it.

Antisemitism or anti white racism?

Having been a part of the hard left in my early 20’s, I am very familiar with the pro-Palestine movement. My sense is that the majority of people who have committed themselves to the cause do not hate Jews. Some of them are in fact Jewish. Instead, they are committed to fighting Western colonialism and imperialism, and see Israel as an extension of it. The anti-Israel protest I saw at the University of Sussex 20 years ago were based on the premise that Israel was a US satellite state engaging in anti-Arab oppression.

The pro-Palestine movement has been joined in recent years by militant identity politics adherents who see the Israel/Palestine conflict through the lens of US racial politics. Now the movements have combined, the hard left has an updated, more militant analysis of what the Israel/Palestine conflict represents. As Columbia language professor John McWhorter writes in the NY Times this week:

Conversations I have had with people heatedly opposed to the war in Gaza, signage and writings on social media and elsewhere and anti-Israel and generally hard-leftist comments that I have heard for decades on campuses place these confrontations within a larger battle against power structures — here in the form of what they call colonialism and genocide — and against whiteness. The idea is that Jewish students and faculty should be able to tolerate all of this because they are white.

If Jews are white, they are part of the oppressor class. If they are part of the oppressor class, then according to the tenets of identity politics, it is impossible to be racist against them. Thus you can throw things at Jews, call them names, celebrate terrorist organizations dedicated to wiping them out, and still be regarded as an anti-racist, anti-imperialist hero.

White middle class antiracists

Just as the most militant pro-Palestinians at my college in the UK were white and middle class, so too are the anti-Israel protestors on campuses around the country:

Protest outside Columbia University in New York City on April 20, 2024 Leonardo Munoz/AFP via Getty Images

Almost all are from middle class backgrounds, and few have any real knowledge of the complex history of the region, or even the geography. If you do not adopt the viewpoint of these self appointed spokespeople for the oppressed, then you are branded a racist, or a sell out. Iranian activist Elica LeBon has repeatedly pointed out that opposing the Israeli government and supporting radical Islamic groups like Hamas is a deeply immoral and contradictory position. Unsurprisingly, much of the hate she receives comes from white middle class activists. She writes:

The reason myself and other similar Middle Eastern voices get attacked by white western radical leftists more than anybody else is because they’re angrier about the blow to their egos for challenging their narratives and therefore implying that they are not understanding and representing our stories accurately, than they are actually curious about and concerned with understanding and representing our stories accurately.

As someone of Jewish descent, this is extremely familiar. It takes on an even odder complexion when these same white middle class antiracists declare you not a minority because you are white too.

The Jewish conundrum

My Jewish family’s experience living London from the 1890’s onwards has been one of being an ethnic minority. My grandparents were orthodox Jews and rarely mixed with anyone outside of their community. My grandfather fought fascists in his neighborhood. My dad experienced vicious antisemitism in the 1960’s. I experienced some of it in the 1980’s and 90’s. Speaking to Jews in America, their experiences pretty much mirror my family’s.

In the past decade or so, Jews have been informed by the left that antisemitism no longer exists, and that they now get all the benefits of “white privilege.” I was recently told by a white middle class liberal for example, that I was “only a minority when it suited me.”

Trying to explain to identity politics adherents that Jews experience racism is a bit like trying to convince an evangelical Christian that Jesus didn’t actually walk on water. The belief is so ingrained it cannot ever be questioned. But it is real, and when you see it up close, it is quite shocking.

Last year for example, my wife applied to 15 different jobs using my last name. She didn’t get a single response. No interviews, no phone calls, and no emails even to let her know. After months of rejection I suggested she apply only using her Hispanic maiden name. She got the first job she applied to.

While happy she got the job, my wife was angered by the whole ordeal. She couldn’t believe that having a Jewish last name meant she wasn’t even considered. For Jews this is wholly unsurprising. Despite the belief that Jews have privilege because of their skin color (and because of their “Jewishness”), the reality is that Jews have always had to make it by themselves. So when we hear tales of our privilege, our power, and our status as oppressors, you can understand why they are increasingly worried about where all of this leads.

Backwards, not forwards

I don’t believe for one second that my friend the school teacher judges his students by their race or ethnicity. I don’t believe he is racist, or antisemitic in any way. But he is part of an education system that uses strict racial categories to differentiate students. It places them into advantaged and disadvantaged categories, assigns them oppression or oppressed status, and even decides which minorities are real, and which ones don’t count.

The result of this incessant racialization is having all sorts of unintended consequences — and not good ones. As political scientist and author Yascha Mounk argues:

It’s increasingly common these days to see schools seek to ensure that their students conceive of themselves as “racial beings,” as one advocate puts it. Some of them even split students into racially segregated affinity groups as early as the first grade. These kinds of practices encourage complex people to see themselves as defined by external characteristics whose combinations and permutations, however numerous, will never amount to a satisfactory depiction of their innermost selves; it is also a recipe for zero-sum conflict between different groups. For example, when teachers at a private school in Manhattan tell white middle schoolers to “own” their “European ancestry,” they are more likely to create racists than anti-racists.

Like Mounk, I believe that systemic racism and oppressive power structures are real. But this new ideology that inverts the racial categories of the far right is not the solution. Because for the first time in my life, I am beginning to fear the racism on the left more than I fear the racism right. And that is not a good place to be.

If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting The Banter by getting a Banter Membership. You’ll get access to Members Only articles, our locked archive, The Emergency Meeting Podcast, and Member chat threads. You’ll also be supporting truly independent media. Thank you!

Read the latest on The Banter:

Republican Abortion Bans Are Chasing Women Out Of Emergency Rooms