Lost, lost, lost

Hello my friends.  Some terrible events have happened recently.  Jewish people were gunned down in their place of worship.  Muslim people were gunned down in their place of worship.  Trump is enabling white nationalism and hatred against both groups.  Trump is supporting far-right positions by a far-right leader of Israel.  Democrats are being attacked for both supporting Israel, and for not supporting Israel enough.  How do we navigate this? 

We should first establish that it is possible to criticize the nation of Israel without being antisemitic. It is possible to criticize Netanyahu and long for the day when he is ousted and his policies are trashed, without resorting to antisemitic slurs. It is possible to state that we must guard against the improper influence of all foreign lobbyists, including AIPAC, without engaging in dangerous stereotypes and tropes against the Jewish people. AND WE MUST DO THIS.

I am a proud Democrat, but there is a very troubling tendency on the Left to view the Israel/Palestinian struggle in terms that are too simplistic, too good guy/bad guy, too black and white.

Saying that does not make me, or anyone, anti-Muslim.

And look, I don't know how to resolve the source of these conflicts, but we must engage on the issues without defaming either Muslims or Jews as a people.

We should ask our government to stop supporting Israeli policies and oppressions that we don't agree with, while still respecting the right of Israel to exist and her people to live. We must strongly condemn terrorism in all forms, whether committed by Muslims, or against them. We must rightly ask those who are invoking the ugly ghosts of antisemitism to stop, and to listen, just as we have asked and will ask others to confront anti-Muslim rhetoric.
To do these things may seem simple.
But Trump has been so visibly and terrifyingly anti-Muslim, and also so clearly aligned with Netanyahu, that it may be difficult to see and to grasp that he is also supporting antisemitism.  White nationalists, whom he enables, are just as willing to kill Jews as they are Muslims.  We know this to be true. 
And the reaction to violence against Muslims frequently and all too easily becomes antisemitic.  We also know this.  We’ve seen it happen.  It’s heartbreaking, but more than that, it’s dangerous.  Our history tells us that any movement that begins with the blaming of the Jewish people is very likely to end with the killing of Jewish people.   Every Jewish person knows this, carries the genetic memory of it, and lives with it.  Many Jewish people are telling us that they see the warning signs of it, right now, in our country and in many others too.  We need to listen to them.

Above all, we must refuse all these bullshit narratives that tell us we must choose a “side” and support it unconditionally. Our side is truth. Our side is peace.  Our mission is to seek those things.

Anti-Muslim prejudice and antisemitism are BOTH on the rise, we must fight BOTH. We must fight white nationalism at home and abroad, both. Let's be united on this, Democrats. Let's work to convince all of America to be united on this.