Political Antisemitism Exposed by Operation Rising Lion

There are two possible reasons for the persistence of shrill, reflexive denunciations of Israel by progressive politicians: naiveté or malice. 

Israel initiated Operation Rising Lion because there was absolutely no doubt regarding Iran’s intention to attack the Jewish State with nuclear weapons. And the timing was critical because the Islamic Republic was dangerously close to “breakout,” facilitated in part by Barack Obama’s feckless nuclear deal and the transfer of billions of dollars to Iran during both his and Biden’s administrations. This windfall also enabled Iran to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and in effect finance the atrocities of October 7th.

Faced with the potential for annihilation, Israel needed to act without further delay and was applauded by many Congressional Republicans for doing so. Democrats were split, however, indicating the progressive wing’s descent into political antisemitism, which ultimately has nothing to do with Israeli policies, and everything to do with hatred of Israel as a Jewish nation.

As college campuses and cities explode with antisemitic violence, as Jews are physically assaulted, and as Jewish institutions are defaced, vandalized, and set ablaze, progressives find it acceptable to utilize the world’s oldest hatred as a political weapon. But how can they spew anti-Israel propaganda that is demonstrably false without being challenged, and how can the mainstream continue to cover for them?

One of the more outrageous statements was that of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), issued after Israel’s first strike, saying: “The world is more dangerous and unstable as a result of the extremist Netanyahu’s government ongoing defiance of international law…First, he uses the starvation of children in Gaza as a tool of war, a barbaric violation of the Geneva Conventions. Now, his illegal unilateral attack on Iran risks a full-blown regional war.”

But here is a reality check for the Senator from Vermont: the world is not more dangerous because Netanyahu struck Iran as it was about to achieve nuclear breakout. Did Sanders express the same concerns regarding global peace and stability when Hamas murdered, raped, and kidnapped Jewish civilians? Or when Iran instigated the war in Yemen? All Netanyahu did was take action to eradicate the nuclear threat of a terror regime that has sworn repeatedly to destroy Israel and perpetrate another Holocaust.

The operation was not “unilateral,” moreover, but only the latest action in a battlefront opened last year when the Islamic Republic attacked Israel with a barrage of nearly two-hundred ballistic missiles. Retaliation then was muted – reportedly because of pressure from the Biden administration to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Additionally, the first ballistic assault against Israel followed multiple wars that Iran precipitated through its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah over the last two decades and a terror campaign it has waged against Jewish targets around the world since 1979.

And despite the Senator’s high-pitched hyperbole, Israel’s actions do not violate international law.

The canard that Israel is starving Gazan children is particularly vile because it evokes false claims of Israeli genocide disseminated by progressives since the beginning of the war. Such calumnies are nothing short of blood libel and are as delusional as the nonsense spouted by politicians who chastise Israel for having the chutzpah to fight for her survival. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), Senior Democrat on the US Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, come to mind for their tedious condemnations of Israel’s actions despite Iran’s well-documented history of terror, provocation, and genocidal threats.

There are two possible reasons for the persistence of shrill, reflexive denunciations of Israel by progressive politicians: naiveté or malice:

1. They can perhaps be excused for not knowing if they are truly unaware of the relevant history and facts, but absolution by ignorance only goes so far in the internet age, when people have immediate informational resources at their fingertips. Consequently, even the ignorant have an intellectual obligation to reevaluate their core beliefs when confronted with easily accessible facts that undermine their predicate assumptions and prejudices.
2. If they continue to disregard facts that present inconvenient truths concerning the genocidal threat against Israel, their ignorance becomes willful and crosses a line from which malevolent bias can be reasonably inferred.

Are there conservatives or Republicans who harbor anti-Israel sentiments? Probably, but they are not attacking Jews in the streets because of the President’s support for Israel. In fact, Republicans as a collective seem to recognize that Israel is doing what the western nations themselves should have done to prevent the Iranian nuclear threat in the first place, instead of coddling Iran, lifting sanctions, and ignoring the Mullahs’ continuous threats of genocide. It would be laudable to help eradicate the nuclear threat posed by a rogue nation with a record of terrorism and regional destabilization; but the West, unfortunately, has a history of weakness, incompetence, and duplicity where Israel and the Jews are concerned.

Israel cannot afford to entrust her survival to a community of nations that failed the Jews so spectacularly during the Holocaust – and which actively participated in their persecution and slaughter for centuries (e.g., during the pogroms, the Russian civil war in which Russians and Ukrainians murdered up to 250,000 Jews, the Khmelnytsky Rebellion, the Inquisition, and the Crusades). Jew-hatred is so thoroughly ingrained in European culture and Islamic society that the kneejerk response to news of any Mideast conflict is to blame Israel. Consequently, empathy or goodwill regarding any national or collective tragedy suffered by Israel or the Jews is typically conditional and fleeting at best.

Indeed, global sympathy after October 7th began fading almost immediately – particularly among progressives.It is especially disappointing to see how progressive antisemitism has engendered moral tone deafness regarding not only hatred of Israel, but the safety of Jews in the United States.

Illustrative of this ethical malaise was the mixed reaction in Congress to the recent attack against Jews in Boulder, Colorado, by an Egyptian immigrant wielding Molotov cocktails and a homemade flamethrower. The perpetrator attempted to immolate twelve Jews who were engaged in a peaceful solidarity walk calling for release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. Shortly thereafter, Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo) introduced a resolution condemning the antisemitic attack and expressing unanimity with the Jewish community. Though Rep. Evans is of non-Jewish heritage, he immediately came to the defense of his Jewish constituents out of a sense of decency and humanity.

The resolution passed by a vote of 280-113, with 205 Republicans voting in favor joined by only 75 Democrats. Incredibly, 113 Democrats voted against the bill, claiming the language was too politically charged. This rationalization was disgraceful and would never have been tolerated if the resolution were written to condemn hate crimes against African Americans, Hispanics, gay people, or any other minority.

Even those who proclaim sympathy for Israel often seem compelled to conflate issues that have disparate historical etiologies, while always placing the burden for resolution on Israel. This was illustrated by the British Foreign Secretary in his address to Parliament about the Israel-Iran conflict, which he concluded by stating: “Our vision remains unchanged. An end to Iran’s nuclear programme and destabilising regional activity. Israel, secure in its borders and at peace with its neighbours. A sovereign Palestinian state, as part of the two-state solution.”

The Foreign Secretary’s juxtaposition of the Iranian nuclear crisis and two-state myth seems to echo the theory of linkage, which deems Israel the root cause of all instability in the Mideast. It also suggests that compassion for Israel is conditioned on how high she will jump when imperiously commanded by nations that do not face existential annihilation.

The menace of a nuclear Iran, however, stands alone and has nothing whatever to do with the Palestinian Arabs – except to the extent that Iran has been subsidizing their state of war against Israel for years, and that the atrocities coordinated by Iran and committed by Hamas on October 7th show the fundamental impossibility of a two-state “solution.”

If the Jewish people have learned anything from the harsh realities of exile, it is:

(a) to distrust the platitudes of those who lecture us on how self-abnegation is essential for our survival, and

(b) to believe antisemites when they say they intend to kill us.

This dialectic was simply yet eloquently articulated to the narrator in Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, “Night,” by the unnamed character who said: “I’ve got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

If the Mullahs in Iran vow their intent to exterminate the Jews with nuclear weapons, we should take them at their word; and conversely, we should ignore the diatribes of western political elites who show their antisemitism by portraying Israel as the aggressor and Jews as bad actors.

©2025 Matthew Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.

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