Yom Yerushalayim was marred this year by air raid sirens and explosions in the city of Jerusalem. A minor legal issue over an eviction of squatters who haven’t paid their rent in a few decades turned into violence in the streets and rockets in the skies. Social media was flooded with condemnations by both sides of the aisle, but the usual suspects continued to side with terrorists and hope for the destruction of the Jewish State. In a battle between Jews and terrorists, American Jewish group IfNotNow will always side against the Jews and with the terrorists.
IfNotNow has their allies in Congress, and leading the charge there were the anti-Semites Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Obviously, they blame Israel for the unrest. Obviously evicting people who don’t pay rent is “ethnic-cleansing,” according to them. They happily ignore rockets firing from Gaza or rocks thrown at civilians, and only cover the retaliatory strikes by Israel, because that fits their narrative. They are looking to condition the military aid that the United States gives to Israel (75% or more of which is spent in the United States, by law), because they would prefer to give money to the terrorists than the Jews.
Tlaib and Omar are not surprising, and they are not dangerous to the unaffiliated Jewish community. While their popularity grows within the Democratic Party, they are still, to this point, a minority. There is also a trend in politics of a backlash, and the political backlash to the extreme Left in the Democratic Party will hopefully come in the form of more moderate Democrats retaking some of these blue districts. So while Tlaib and Omar are dangerous, their form of danger can be weathered.
Far more dangerous are the Judaism-hating Jews like IfNotNow. I call them Judaism-hating Jews and not self-hating Jews because there is no one they love more than themselves and nothing they love more about themselves than their ethnically Jewish identity. Without that identity, they are just coastal white liberal elites, but with that identity, they can become victims. While they are not as high up on the intersectional hierarchy as other self-proclaimed victims of oppression, it’s certainly better than just being white.
What they hate is Judaism, the Jewish Nation, and the fact that Jews have a historic and religious connection to the State of Israel. The core values of Judaism are antithetical to Leftism, and you cannot be a member of two religions at once; and Leftism is certainly a religion. So they will always side with the Leftist cause of the day and against the Jewish State, even if that means cheering on the murder of Jews.
In a deleted Tweet, the official IfNotNow account responded to video which included Palestinians calling for the bombing of Tel Aviv, “Incredible, inspiring images of Palestinian resistance coming out of Jerusalem tonight. American Jews are with you.” Then, when called out on it, IfNotNow co-founder Yonah Lieberman falsely claims that “Israeli forces killed a Palestinian...and the American right wants to talk about a deleted tweet.” Since that claim was a lie, Lieberman had to delete that tweet too.
IfNotNow is the most dangerous threat to the hearts and minds of unaffiliated American Jews around today. Those Jews, who are already prone to imbibing the Leftist propaganda without question, are looking for a community of Jews they can relate to. IfNotNow knows how to look and sound relatable.
Let’s compare IfNotNow to another well-known group of Jews that hate Israel more than they love their fellow Jews: the Neturei Karta. Most know of the Neturei Karta as the radical chasidim who protest the Salute to Israel Day Parade while waving Palestinians flags. They can be seen arm-in-arm with terrorists like Mahmoud Abbas, whose wide grin shows that he revels in the stupidity of a media that laps up a picture of him with a chasid. They are the epitome of a Chilul Hashem, yet they pose no danger to American Jewry’s hearts and minds.
No unaffiliated Jew will look at the Neturei Karta and find common cause. They are a sideshow, a gimmick that most people laugh at when they are on the street. IfNotNow, on the other hand, speak the language of the woke Leftist. They are on college campuses, go on Birthright trips, and communicate on social media. They don’t keep Shabbos or Kosher, so the unaffiliated Jew doesn’t feel any need to change their non-religious habits. IfNotNow gives these kids a sense of identity without any of the obligations of being religiously Jewish, and they get to fight for a social justice cause as well.
Just like Abbas uses the Neturei Karta, Omar and Tlaib use IfNotNow. They stand next to them, grinning because they know that they don’t look anti-Semitic because they are endorsed by this Jewish group. Meanwhile, IfNotNow actively promotes the death of the Jewish State and the Jews who live there - same as Omar and Tlaib - and get to say with a straight face, “American Jews are with you.”
No, IfNotNow - American Jews are not with you. We see you for what you are, Hellenists and Kapos with a new name. And like them, we will toss you into the dustbin of history, and your names will be an insult to future generations. Every enemy of the Jewish people gets destroyed, IfNotNow, and you are on that list.
Moshe Hill is a political columnist and Senior Fellow at Chovevei Zion. You can find Moshe on his blog at www.aHillwithaView.com, facebook.com/aHillwithaView, or twitter.com/TheMoHill.