Will America be able to protect its Jewish population?

If you’re a Jewish student on one of America’s many campuses, it’s likely you are feeling threatened and vulnerable in ways that are making you anxious and frightened for your safety. This is the result of the aftermath of the Oct. 7 brutal Hamas attack on Israeli soil, already responsible for the savage killing of more than 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians and foreigners.

With images of massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations taking place each day, and calls for Israel to be punished and castigated for their responses as they defend their citizens who are being subjected to constant rocket attacks, almost hourly, including hitting densely populated areas such as Tel Aviv, American Jews are witnessing an angry sentiment which has risen to levels never seen before.

Just on Wednesday, students from George Washington University, who are members of a campus group called, “Students for Justice in Palestine,” chose to project their antisemitic messages onto a the Gelman library wall of the campus, coincidentally funded by Jewish donors. Those messages read: “Glory to our Martyrs,” “Divest from Zionist Genocide,” and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a reference, used by Hamas, which calls for the genocide of all Jews as they are driven from the land of Israel. Although complaints were immediately made to campus officials, it took two hours before the messages were taken down.   

One Jewish student was seen crying hysterically on campus just days before, when angry protests were taking place, asking, through her sobs: “Why are you allowing this?...they want us dead.”

But many Jewish students have good reason to fear for their own safety, given the results of a recent Harvard/Harris poll which revealed that a whopping 48% of respondents ages 18-24 support Hamas terrorists over the free and Democratic nation of Israel. Among those, 51% believe that genocide of the Jewish people is warranted based on Palestinian grievances. 

Journalist Phil Klein of the National Review, flabbergasted by those numbers, wonders if those young people even comprehend the meaning of genocide, because believing that they knowingly understand the ramifications of killing an entire race of people was apparently too incredulous for him to accept.

However, these latest concerns are not solely confined to university campuses. A worrying trend showing a significant spike in antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7 has been noted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has cited as many as 312 incidents in the span of the last two weeks – 190 of them being directly linked to the war. These include attacks on Jewish families and businesses.

Jewish parents, in particular, are also edgy about the safety of their children who attend private Jewish schools that now must be heavily guarded for fear of being attacked. The same is true of American synagogues which have already been the site of shootings, well before Oct. 7.  

So many of these incidents are all too reminiscent of the type of tense atmosphere that began to appear more and more in the 1930s, as the rise of the Nazi party, throughout many places in Europe, began to be felt. Even before Jews were being singled out, visibly showing their identity with the yellow Star of David, Jewish shops and individuals were often the victims of frequent indiscriminate attacks, just because of their ethnicity.

Luckily, America is not in the throes of pre-Nazi Germany, because the Democrat party, which has always been supported by many Jews, would never turn their back on them – or would they?

David Mamet, well-known American playwright and film director, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross, feels otherwise. In his article entitled, “How the Democrats betrayed the Jews, he says:

“We N.Y. Jews have always voted for the Democrats…in spite of (in both their and my lifetime) quotas and antisemitic discrimination. Still today, Jews vote Democratic: electing presidents who refused to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister (Obama and Biden) in times of ‘peace,’ who gave and give aid to the terrorist state of Iran in exchange for some semi-specified ‘deal. American ‘aid’ to Iran pays for the equipment and ordinance, which is, at this this moment, eradicating Jews. Democrat representatives repeat and refuse to retract the libel that Israel bombed a hospital, in spite of absolute proof to the contrary and will not call out the unutterable atrocities of Hamas. The writing is on the wall. In blood.”

What first appeared to be a strong show of support by the Democrat U.S. President, Joe Biden, as well as his Jewish U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, little by little, has seemed to erode into a tepid acknowledgement of Israel’s right to defend herself against Hamas terrorists, but also accompanied by what appears to be a delayed campaign that does not have the go-ahead, by U.S. leaders, to begin a ground incursion.

Rumors of administrative fears that the defense of Israel could ignite World War III, has made them skittish to agree to “pull the trigger,” which explains why there is a hesitancy to move forward with military action by troops, who have been amassed at the Gaza border for probably close to two weeks already, as the administration slow-walks their approval. For now, the convenient excuse is that military defense systems are not yet in place. 

A loud message is being sent by the Biden administration, which doesn’t want to anger either its more extreme party base, many of which have outright called for Israel to be held for war crimes – this at a time when the axis of evil (Russia, Lebanon, China, Iran), all have the will to stand with Hamas by assisting them in their goal to annihilate the Jewish state.  

Without a strong, uncompromising and unapologetic defense of Israel’s right to defend herself now, rather than later, the present hostile atmosphere in the U.S. will only continue to spread, putting America’s Jewish population at risk, solely because of their ethnicity. Ignorant young people will continue to foment their Jewish hatred, disguised as anti-Israel rhetoric, because no one from the top will keep them in check.  

If the Democratic party really wanted to loyally support American Jews who have been a faithful constituency to them for more than a hundred years, they could start by educating those who are disseminating lies, by loudly denying the vicious and false claims of apartheid, Palestinian genocide by Israel, the slander of being occupiers and colonists, and the historical inaccuracy of Jews having stolen Palestinian land. That would be a good start!

But short of being strong advocates for Israel and their own Jewish party members, the American Jewish community should not put too much trust in being defended and protected by their own government, because, at the moment, those things don’t seem to be a real priority to this administration, which seems much more concerned with how to avoid a huge mess-up which could cost them the 2024 election.