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There is considerable irony in the fact that Donald Trump when president virtually crawled to do Israel’s bidding more than any of his predecessors. He moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he accepted brutal Israeli settlement and control of the Palestinian West Bank, approved of the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and ignored repeated Israeli war crimes using US provided weapons. Yet for all his gifts to Israel, which did not serve any actual US interest, he is currently being crucified by the Jewish/Israel Lobby because of an idiotic dinner with a pair of alleged anti-Semites, one of whom has been labeled a “holocaust denier.”
And the extreme reaction of Jewish groups to the affront also itself possesses a certain irony in that it demonstrates how extraordinarily powerful promoters of Jewish and Israeli interests actually are, something that those selfsame groups take pains to deny at every opportunity, just as they deny having “dual loyalty” to Israel. The fact is that force majeure will prevail and we will now see the deliberate and methodical destruction of Donald J. Trump’s 2024 proposed presidential campaign by American Jewish and Israeli apologists.
Trump had already been taken out to the back woodshed for a good whipping once after he posted a comment on his Truth Social network on October 16th. He boasted how “No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US… US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel — Before it is too late!”
But the rage unleashed by folks like the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Jonathan Greenblatt, who labeled the October 16th comment as “insulting and disgusting,” combined with the attacks on three black celebrities, is already beginning to produce pushback, particularly from many normally apolitical blacks who are upset at the viciousness of the Jewish take-no-prisoners response due to its perceived racial overtones. Other observers also are concerned at how the Jewish groups and individuals are overstating the significance of some of the alleged anti-Semitic incidents (by their definition) in an self-serving effort to validate their view that Jewish suffering is unique and cannot be compared with other crimes against humanity.
Also, for those who choose to defend the First Amendment right to free speech, it is discouraging to observe how it is possible to say nearly anything as long as it does not offend Jewish sensibilities. There have already been moves in congress to criminalize criticism of Jews or Israel, making such actions the ultimate “hate crime.” Those specifically Jewish sensibilities absurdly include declaring anyone to be an anti-Semite who criticizes the behavior of Israel as it destroys schools and shoots a Palestinian teenager nearly every day. Indeed, the US media of late has been awash with stories about surging anti-Semitism which taken all together celebrate Israeli/Jewish victimhood while also ignoring Jerusalem’s war crimes and focusing instead on alleged conspiracies against Jews. Most despicable of all in the eyes of those protectors of all things Jewish are the few visible critics who have recognized that the standard holocaust narrative that has been artfully and deliberately shaped since the Second World War is full of inconsistencies and errors in demonstrable fact. So-called “holocaust deniers” are denigrated beyond all others because they attack the very raison d’etre that constitutes the “miraculous” Israel creation myth.
Examining what Kanye West and Donald Trump did and said suggests that there has been considerable overreaction from the Greenblatts of this world and their allies in the media and in government. Starting with Kanye West, currently going by the name Ye, one finds that his initial comments made were not particularly startling, suggesting that Jews directly own or control and manage the entertainment industry in the United States, which is manifestly true. As the criticism of Ye, who believes that blacks are descended from the ancient Hebrews, intensified, he responded with some heat, eventually coming out with an incoherent tweet to “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The comedian Dave Chappelle followed up on the controversy by delivering a stinging monologue on “Saturday Night Live” on “the Jews” and their numbers in the entertainment industry saying that it’s “not a crazy thing to think” that Jews exert outsized influence in Hollywood and the media. He also suggested that Kanye had violated Hollywood’s “rules of perception,” saying, “If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. But if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
If Greenblatt had ignored Ye it is likely that his poorly expressed comments would have been quickly forgotten, but that is not how the Greenblatts of this world operate. Every offense against the standard narrative of Jewish victimhood requires full scale war. Reports early last week suggest that the efforts by ADL and others to convince businesses associated with Ye to cut off all ties with him have been successful, meaning that he is no longer a billionaire and likely has a fortune reduced to something in the $400 million range.
There have been similar responses to basketball player Kyrie Irving’s recent tweet supporting the so-called Black Hebrew Israelite theory that he shares with Ye which asserts that blacks are in fact Jews while black comedian Dave Chapelle making fun of the ADL overreaction on Saturday Night Live is under the gun from that organization, which has accused him of “popularizing” and “normalizing” anti-Semitism. Kyrie Irving, who also believes the earth is flat, was denounced as a “person unfit to associate with” by his team owner and was suspended for eight games without pay by the Brooklyn Nets even though he characteristically offered several abject apologies.
This all led up to the dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Ye and a so-called white supremacist Nick Fuentes. It is not clear what was discussed at dinner, but Ye states that Trump was impressed by Fuentes. In the aftermath of the meal, when news of it appeared in the media, a shit storm erupted. Trump claimed both that he did not know Fuentes and that he had been tricked by Ye, that the man was brought to the meal as Ye’s guest. Those assertions, most likely lies, have been assailed all over the media and also by the usual suspects like Greenblatt who announced that “The normalization of antisemitism is here.” On the following day, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader and himself a Jew who fancies himself the “Protector of Israel in the Senate” went to the Senate floor to denounce Trump’s actions as “disgusting and dangerous,” before calling them “pure evil.”
Prominent Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Marco Rubio have also piled on, suggesting that Trump will find little support even among those politicians that he would normally consider to be favorable to his reelection. Notably, the Republican Jewish Coalition has joined in the attacks, which means that campaign money will not be flowing to Trump from that usually reliable source. And even Trump’s former lawyer and the man he named ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has condemned his old boss and patron, saying “Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable.” Ironically, Friedman, whose loyalty to the United States might be considered questionable, was a persistent apologist for Israel during his time in that country rather than a promoter of US interests.
I have to confess that I had never heard of Nick Fuentes, so I did a little checking on the claim that he was a “holocaust denier.” Fuentes is well-documented as making comments reflecting his rather intense dislike for Jews, but concerning the holocaust all I could come up with was a comment allegedly made by him attacking the claim that six million Jews died in what have been described as death camps, with a suggestion that it was more likely 200,000 to 300,000 as a realistic figure supported by official and other records. He described those deaths as “cookies,” which are baked in the oven and which may have angered critics more than the comment about the numbers. Interestingly, the six million number is one of the more ridiculous assertions that are part and parcel of the holocaust narrative as it appears to have been arbitrarily arrived at as “acceptable” and there has been considerable disagreement over its reliability.
So, Fuentes, it seems, is not a holocaust denier, rather he appears to be skeptical regarding the standard narrative, as am I and many others who have bothered to look into the verifiable historical record. But that does not mean that anyone in power will be standing in line to excuse his behavior. And his dinner partner Donald Trump has evidently now outstayed his welcome by the standards of the noble protectors of Jewish and Israeli interests. The large dollops of campaign cash will not be coming in, those willing to endorse his candidacy will be far fewer, and the media will turn on him even more than it has done over the past six years. Indeed, it is doing so already. There are numerous articles in the mainstream every day telling over and over again the tale of the fateful dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has clearly crossed the notorious red line on Jewish issues. The only remaining question is what will it do to people like Greenblatt? If he keeps hammering away, which he will because that is how he is wired, could the worm turn and will Americans begin to wonder how 2% of the population has obtained so much power? That would be a really interesting development.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA