WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: A Dennis Prager article this week warns American Jews about the threat to America and especially us and Israel from the far left. There’s also a threat from the far right. Things we can do, I think, include not being taken for granted by either political party and not joining in pressuring Israelis to accept creation of a western Palestine Arab state they regard as an existential threat militarily and to our meaningful homeland.
“Civilization is Fragile,” Says Dennis Prager in a Warning of the Far-Left to American Jews that’s At Least Half-Right
“The question I receive more than any other from non-Jews,” well-known radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager wrote in an article, A Reminder to American Jews: Civilization Is Fragile, the day after Yom Kippur, carried by Townhall.com this week, is “Why are so many [American] Jews on the left?” My late co-author Lee and I got a whiff of this when we gave our Powerpoint talk based on our anti-Israel media bias book to a Christian group in New Jersey.
In this week’s Townhall column, Prager doesn’t so much answer that question as warn of the danger, especially but far from only to American Jews, of a domination of political power in America by the far left. It would turn our “extraordinarily decent America” into a place suppressing personal freedom, starting “with the most important freedom, freedom of speech.” He cites, inter alia, “how Jewish students who publicly identify as Jews, let alone as pro-Israel Jews, are [already] treated on many American campuses.” He extends his warning to the rest of Americans: we’re the canary in the coal mine; what starts with us will hurt them too in the end. He warns that “civilization is fragile,” that while it takes great effort and time to build a decent society, “it takes little effort and little time to destroy.”
I don’t disagree with Dennis Prager, but I think there’s more about which to be warned. “Charlottesville” came up in this week’s vice-presidential debate. President Trump was once again wrongly accused there of not having condemned far-right extremists at Charlottesville (he did expressly exclude such groups from his “there are good people on both sides” remarks on what went on there). But it was far-right night marchers at Charlottesville, not far-left, who chanted there, utterly irrelevant to the tearing down there or not of a Confederate-side Civil War statue, “Jews will not replace us.”
By me, Prager is right in warning that “Civilization Is Fragile,” that what happened in Germany, “the most culturally advanced country in Europe,” can happen here.
After painting a picture of destruction that the far-left can wreak on a country, Prager goes on:
“Why, then, does this left-wing destruction not frighten America’s Jews? Do they not know the more power the left has, the less freedom they and all other Americans will have? Do they not know how much Black Lives Matter, antifa and the rest of the left loathe Israel? Or do they not care? (The answer is that, increasingly, many American Jews do not care – especially young Jews, who have been raised by left-wing teachers and left-wing media.)”
I accept that the first duty of American Jewish “defense” organizations is the welfare of our American Jewish community. But the Jewish homeland of Israel is singled out, not just by the UN and EU, but by groups and people, including people in government, in America. We must not quietly accept that, and if Prager is right that “increasingly, many American Jews do not care” about Israel, we must not accept that either.
There are two things, among others, that I think American Jews, individually and as a community, should do. We should not allow ourselves “to be taken for granted” by either political party. And we should not join in pressuring Israelis to accept creation of a western Palestine Arab state that they see as an existential threat to their country both militarily and as the meaningful homeland of our people.