Haven't you figured it out? The people you are describing aren't liberals. They are illiberal radicals. They have coopted the term. We mustn't let them. Leftists are inherently illiberal.
The hypocrisy is damning. I will never forget Columbia's former president, during the government hearings about justifying antisemitic campus actions, saying "It depends on the context." There is no context to anti-Semitism or racism. Traditional progressives knew that, but today's "progressives" are actually regressives.
Unfortunately the Jews themselves are to blame for this. Just as two temples were destroyed and the Jews dispersed thru out the world we are now in the same position. Israel was attacked because the Israelis were divided. Fifty percent of the Jews in this country support anti Israel organizations and politicians. Even Jewish politicians are anti Israel. Why? Because they support all these left wing causes instead of supporting the needs of Jewish survival. They have totally distorted Tikun Olam! Look how many Jews voted for a Jihadist mayor in NYC.
Europe is well on its way to being taken over by Islam. Americans are so badly educated they have no knowledge of what is going on in the rest of the world. They live in their own little naive bubble and the Holocaust, to them, is ancient history almost as distant as past Jewish persecutions and destructions that have happened continuously throughout history. Until the Jews learn to be united in their politics , which hasn’t happened in 5000 years, we are only in for another destruction and dispersal, but who will accept us this time? When Trump leaves office there is not another politician in the world with any power who will support the Jews.
26% of NYC Jews voted for Mamdani, the Democrat candidate for mayor. Considering that 90% of NYC Jews in NYC are registered Democrats, looks like most Jews voted against their party's choice and didn't vote for Mamdani. I still have family members living in Brooklyn and none of them voted for Mamdani, and all are registered Democrats.
Your response was spot on, until you credited Trump with supporting Israel. Don’t you see the damage he has done to Jews both here in Israel and the diaspora? He has been responsible for elevating antisemitism to a new level. No one will convince me that this person ( or his regime) is pro Israel. His actions are always self serving.
Antisemites are responsible for antisemitism, not President Trump. Your comment absolves the haters of any agency. You need to stop providing excuses for those who live on the dark side.
I understand your point, but please don’t “blame the Jews.” Yes, misguided Jews have embraced other than their own heritage by supporting essentially new religions like Tikun Olam. Jews have selflessly undertaken the cause of others as well. But those Jews are not the cause of the betrayal.
And don’t forget the spineless coward, Rahm Emanuel, who thinks by criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu for fighting back against those who want Israel wiped out the democrats will choose him.
I listened to Rahm Emanuel’s interview on Call Me Back and found myself less dismissive of his theme than I expected. My takeaway was the present political state of affairs with Gazans and West Bankers needs to be shaken up to start some motion towards a political resolution if one can be had. I’ve heard this recently from Israeli commentators who I respect far more than Emanuel.
Although there is a core truth to these views, a core reality is that those folks don’t desire a political solution. I see nothing to indicate the PA, Hamas Or Hezbollah have any desire for a kumbaya moment.
That’s why the hard talk must be directed at those bad actors. Sadly the world panders to them and they’re rewarded for terrorism. They have no incentive to seek a political peace
The failed mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, went on a mission not to criticize PA, Hamas or Hezbollah he specifically went to Israel to criticize Israel. This native of Chicago, another delusional Jew, needs to focus on his crime ridden city.
Agreed. And he did so with his eye on 2028. He wants to be a “good Jew” for the left. Nevertheless, I’ve heard Israeli commentators wholly independent of Emanuel Who use similar terms to discuss the stalemate. Admittedly, my immediate response was visceral. But listening further. I heard some interesting thoughts that moved my compass dial a bit.
For example, I forgot which person said this. Israel should assist in rehabilitating the area they control in Gaza and encourage Gazans to live there in safety and security. Give them a better life and others will perhaps reject Hamas brutality. It’s all a perhaps. But it’s the notion of thinking forward not backward. A “day after” start.
I challenge Rahm Emanuel to travel to Gaza and speak directly to the population there. It is widely acknowledged that a significant majority, approximately 90%, celebrated the October 7 attack against Jewish people.
Do you really think Israelis are divided? They are completely unified in wanting security for their country. Are there some Israelis who are not happy with the present regime? Yes. A vocal minority. That is politics. If Netanyahu were to run again he would be re-elected.
An absolutely superb piece. I would add to your list that Liberals frequently accuse others of cultural appropriation yet have no qualms about wearing a keffiyeh.
Disappointing that liberalism/progressivism turns out to be antisemitism in disguise. Even more disappointing that so many Jews not only haven’t figured this out, but actually embrace it.
Where were these people hiding before October 7th? How did Jewish organizations and thought leaders not know this was brewing? How did all of the big shot donors to Harvard, Colombia, etc. not see this coming? Was everyone asleep at the switch? Or in cahoots with it?
I saw it coming. I warned my liberal friends that the next wave of antisemitism would come from the left and with a vengeance. Anyone following what was taught in universities, from which journalists and today’s grade school teachers were educated, should have seen the wave forming at the horizon.
The Israelis did know this war was coming. Israel found the entire plan and couldn't believe that Hamas could get that organized and follow through. Yet they watched each step be completed. Women soldiers monitoring Gaza tried repeatedly to warn the military generals that this was happening, but were ignored. Several generals admitted their guilt. There's much more to come out.
Before the yom kippur war started, they also saw all the movements from.the enemy but just couldnt believe they would attack, it didnt fit into their doctrine. That was 43 years ago. The new generation obviously didnt learn from the past.
Joshua wrote: "Liberals did not lose their credibility by caring about Palestinians. They lost it by acting as though caring about Palestinians required them to stop caring about Jews"
Liberals haven't cared about Jews for decades. But, some Jews are just discovering this now. Other Jews, so filled with cognitive dissonance at the prospect, still refuse to wake up to what's going on, because they would realize they've been supporting a cause that doesn't support them.
I'm sure there were German Jews who were decorated soldiers from WWI, who couldn't imagine that Germany would murder them just because they were Jewish. They thought their loyalty would price to Germany that they were one of the "good ones".
The so-called Jews who continue to support today's Democrats are engaging in the same wishful thinking. I also believe that these ethnic Jews have traded their Jewish religion for the religion of liberalism.
Yup! So what are the Jews going to do about this? And what is Israel going to do about it? Breaking with the liberal tradition is hard for Jews, even though we have another older one to apply in the modern world. But will we? Will Israel crush the Palestinians and drive them out of a land they do not belong in? Will Jews make life miserable for their enemies? Wait and see, but not too long.
Joshua nailed it, again. The term liberal has been highjacked, like the term " progressive ", for opposite nefarious meanings . Those " liberals" are totalitarians. They tolerate no other thinking. I have experienced it personally with friends and family.
" Progressives" are " regressively" attached to Islamists and to communist doctrines that have universally proven themselves useless and, indeed, regressive.
As for us, Jews, being divided has many times brought catastrophe upon the people. Individual Jews have been world changers, but as a people, we have demonstrated not a small measure of collective stupidity.
Whether it was the decision to ally against the Babylonians, or oppose and attack Rome, or decide Hamas could be managed, or for so many so-called Jews to vote for Mamdani, all these were terrible errors. But we are entitled to our errors .We are human. The question is why can't we learn from those errors.
At the same time, in spite of all these cataclysmic defeats, the people miraculously survived and Israel was re-born. So was Hebrew.
So many miracles. There will be more. It comes with the Jewish territory.
Liberalism's Achilles' Heel has always been that it can provide a HOW or a YES or NO but never a WHY, that it is based on proceduralism and abstractions like Liberty and Justice but has no normative moral core, no telos of the Good for its citizens. Liberalism is rooted in Protestantism—individualism, pluralism, emancipation, tolerance, free critical inquiry etc—but we only notice our Christian (and Jewish) roots now because they're rotted and severed. As we've become post-faith we've also become postliberal, meaning all the basic moral suppositions of Christianity (even if honored in the breach) that governed norms and relations have given way to a war of all against all, rooted in the raw tribalism that Liberalism was meant to counter.
But atop this sterile soil a new worldview was planted with a harder-edged morality (sorry for the mixed metaphor), the post-Marxist post-Christian faith called Social Justice. And Social Justice was perfectly designed for the secular, deracinated post-60s Westerner: simplistic, moralistic, essentially a modern crucifix pendant designed to signal that the bearer is on the side of the angels, as much therapeutic and political as religious and based on an updated Marxist theology: all victims are sacred, all oppressors evil, the West is wicked just based on its wealth and colonial history and all of its patrimony is a single uninterrupted hate crime against the marginalized (now sacralized) Other, the black/brown or sexual/religious minority, the last who shall now be first, who become the center of a new moral universe that all Good People know to center and atone toward.
And once the West handed over 2/3 generations of its children to the academic New Left (whose campuses have long been churches of the Social Justice faith), who gradually gained power by styling themselves as Official Defenders of the Oppressed, all the rest we've been living through was inevitable. Or to make the point more simply: if you allow others to install their morality in your children (not to mention the larger culture) don't be surprised when the moment comes and an entire generation has a different morality—and not just different in this case, but completely oppositional and designed to be an illiberal weapon that uses the Paradox of Tolerance to bully its way to total control. Thus many people now who were born in a world governed by Judeo-Christian ethics are living in a world governed by Leninist who/whom ethics.
Critical Anti-Zionism has been a strong branch of this new political religion since at least Munich 1972 and it's not surprising that few liberals can stand up to it. They've already long been conditioned to view Social Justice as not just morally pristine but socially mandatory, the moat that separates compassionate liberals from bigoted Deplorables, not to mention that their jobs, careers, futures, friends and families depend upon displaying loyalty and obedience toward it (their kids would kill them otherwise!). It wasn't 10/7 that proved this but 10/8: this is when we learned we were living in a different world now and that the old order was dead. Our liberal classes (well-compensated writers, journalists, artists, professors etc) were faced with a major moral test and failed miserably, showing no spine or ability to contradict any child shrieking about Justice and no ability to oppose the herd. (Even our exalted Ivy League couldn't be bothered to explain to their children the difference between a just, defensive war and a "genocide".)
Epidemics of mass social hatred and destruction are always enabled by mass outbreaks of cowardice. The supposed leaders of the liberal West have failed to stand up for all the principles they claim—it even turns out that Never Again! came with an expiration date—which is why liberalism is rotting and close to death.
The principle of Freedom and Love and Peace for all people, which is the emotional and moral foundation of Liberalism, sadly breaks down in times of War. This singular fact is so hard for Liberals to accept because the Real reason is that to do so challenges the Easy living and comfortable and cosseted living which Western Liberals think is their entitlement and Birthright. This fact, liberal laziness, is ruthlessly used and exploited by both Islamists and Islam itself which is a Religion of War. The Palestinians were offered Peace and a State FIVE TIMES. They chose war, and is the exact point at which Western Liberalism no longer applies. In case anyone says that The West has not been in this position before, say this: We in Western Europe suspended Liberalism in World War Two to defeat a merciless dictator. We would have to once again if threatened. All principles meet their match when confronted by reality. Gaza was ours. This is the Reality of the Limits of Principle. Sad but True.
I think the loss of credibility went beyond the Jewish community. Jews were simply one of the last groups to realize it because many of us had been part of that liberal umbrella for so long.
For me, the warning signs started well before October 7. Universities couldn't answer basic questions like "What is a woman?" Meritocracy gave way to identity politics. Equality increasingly became equity. Principles that were supposed to be universal became conditional, depending on who the victim was and who the accused was.
October 7 exposed that inconsistency more clearly than anything else. The rules suddenly changed when it came to Jews and Israel, and that's when many people—including lifelong liberals—began asking whether these principles were ever truly universal.
That's why your article resonates. It's not that liberals cared about Palestinians. It's that too many of them stopped applying the same moral standards to Jews. Once people see that principles have exceptions, trust is very hard to restore.
Joshua Hoffman misses the point. He describes the signs and symptoms of liberal rejection of Jews, but not the cause. For many Jews and liberals
(aka the Left), the power ascendancy of the Red/Green Alliance provides a gathering point for all the woke, vapid liberals who want to be on the side of the “winners“ and occupy a seat at the cool kids lunch table.
I agree, historically Jew’s embrace of liberalism was a moral framework. But liberalism left Jews in favor of power and influence. The liberal response to October 7th laid bare their true motivations. They doubled down on Jew hatred, lest their argument be usurped by the obvious complicity of the very people they were defending.
Liberal embrace of this movement comes with a cost as pastor Niemoller has said loud and clear.
Thanks for an outstanding article, Josh, that explains so well why I left the democratic party after 59 years of voting only for democrats. Unless Fetterman runs or the party reverses its position on Jews and Israel, I will not vote democratic again for the reasons you name.
Haven't you figured it out? The people you are describing aren't liberals. They are illiberal radicals. They have coopted the term. We mustn't let them. Leftists are inherently illiberal.
The Democratic party has left liberals behind. Senator Fetterman a liberal Democrat is threatening to leave the party over its anti Israel stance.
Why doesn't he just leave 🤷
The hypocrisy is damning. I will never forget Columbia's former president, during the government hearings about justifying antisemitic campus actions, saying "It depends on the context." There is no context to anti-Semitism or racism. Traditional progressives knew that, but today's "progressives" are actually regressives.
Unfortunately the Jews themselves are to blame for this. Just as two temples were destroyed and the Jews dispersed thru out the world we are now in the same position. Israel was attacked because the Israelis were divided. Fifty percent of the Jews in this country support anti Israel organizations and politicians. Even Jewish politicians are anti Israel. Why? Because they support all these left wing causes instead of supporting the needs of Jewish survival. They have totally distorted Tikun Olam! Look how many Jews voted for a Jihadist mayor in NYC.
Europe is well on its way to being taken over by Islam. Americans are so badly educated they have no knowledge of what is going on in the rest of the world. They live in their own little naive bubble and the Holocaust, to them, is ancient history almost as distant as past Jewish persecutions and destructions that have happened continuously throughout history. Until the Jews learn to be united in their politics , which hasn’t happened in 5000 years, we are only in for another destruction and dispersal, but who will accept us this time? When Trump leaves office there is not another politician in the world with any power who will support the Jews.
26% of NYC Jews voted for Mamdani, the Democrat candidate for mayor. Considering that 90% of NYC Jews in NYC are registered Democrats, looks like most Jews voted against their party's choice and didn't vote for Mamdani. I still have family members living in Brooklyn and none of them voted for Mamdani, and all are registered Democrats.
Yes, too many people are glued to their phones/electronics! You’re forgetting about Rubio ‘28!
Rubio is a strong supporter of Israel.
Yes but he has to be elected president. We might get Vance.
Let’s hope not.
I’m not forgetting. I’m hopeful!
Ah but how many jews who constantly call republicans racist , etc will actually vote for Rubio over the "lady" they voted for less than two years ago.
I will vote for Rubio 2028.
Your response was spot on, until you credited Trump with supporting Israel. Don’t you see the damage he has done to Jews both here in Israel and the diaspora? He has been responsible for elevating antisemitism to a new level. No one will convince me that this person ( or his regime) is pro Israel. His actions are always self serving.
Antisemites are responsible for antisemitism, not President Trump. Your comment absolves the haters of any agency. You need to stop providing excuses for those who live on the dark side.
One must do the right thing, not worry about what people think!
"No one will convince me that this person ( or his regime) is pro Israel. His actions are always self serving."
The choice was binary in 2024:
Trump or Harris (100% for Islam, Jew Hatred and Israel hatred.)
How did YOU vote?
Anything to say to the Jews who are supporting the Jihadists while harming Jews everywhere ? There are plenty of those fools, starting with Bernie.
Looks like you want a scapegoat, too.
I understand your point, but please don’t “blame the Jews.” Yes, misguided Jews have embraced other than their own heritage by supporting essentially new religions like Tikun Olam. Jews have selflessly undertaken the cause of others as well. But those Jews are not the cause of the betrayal.
And don’t forget the spineless coward, Rahm Emanuel, who thinks by criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu for fighting back against those who want Israel wiped out the democrats will choose him.
I listened to Rahm Emanuel’s interview on Call Me Back and found myself less dismissive of his theme than I expected. My takeaway was the present political state of affairs with Gazans and West Bankers needs to be shaken up to start some motion towards a political resolution if one can be had. I’ve heard this recently from Israeli commentators who I respect far more than Emanuel.
Although there is a core truth to these views, a core reality is that those folks don’t desire a political solution. I see nothing to indicate the PA, Hamas Or Hezbollah have any desire for a kumbaya moment.
That’s why the hard talk must be directed at those bad actors. Sadly the world panders to them and they’re rewarded for terrorism. They have no incentive to seek a political peace
The failed mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, went on a mission not to criticize PA, Hamas or Hezbollah he specifically went to Israel to criticize Israel. This native of Chicago, another delusional Jew, needs to focus on his crime ridden city.
Agreed. And he did so with his eye on 2028. He wants to be a “good Jew” for the left. Nevertheless, I’ve heard Israeli commentators wholly independent of Emanuel Who use similar terms to discuss the stalemate. Admittedly, my immediate response was visceral. But listening further. I heard some interesting thoughts that moved my compass dial a bit.
For example, I forgot which person said this. Israel should assist in rehabilitating the area they control in Gaza and encourage Gazans to live there in safety and security. Give them a better life and others will perhaps reject Hamas brutality. It’s all a perhaps. But it’s the notion of thinking forward not backward. A “day after” start.
I challenge Rahm Emanuel to travel to Gaza and speak directly to the population there. It is widely acknowledged that a significant majority, approximately 90%, celebrated the October 7 attack against Jewish people.
American Jews who are anti-Israel no longer practice the Jewish religion. They have converted. Their new religion is Leftism/Socialism/Communism.
I think that Israel needs a new leader. Israel needs someone to bring the people together.
Do you really think Israelis are divided? They are completely unified in wanting security for their country. Are there some Israelis who are not happy with the present regime? Yes. A vocal minority. That is politics. If Netanyahu were to run again he would be re-elected.
An absolutely superb piece. I would add to your list that Liberals frequently accuse others of cultural appropriation yet have no qualms about wearing a keffiyeh.
Disappointing that liberalism/progressivism turns out to be antisemitism in disguise. Even more disappointing that so many Jews not only haven’t figured this out, but actually embrace it.
Where were these people hiding before October 7th? How did Jewish organizations and thought leaders not know this was brewing? How did all of the big shot donors to Harvard, Colombia, etc. not see this coming? Was everyone asleep at the switch? Or in cahoots with it?
I saw it coming. I warned my liberal friends that the next wave of antisemitism would come from the left and with a vengeance. Anyone following what was taught in universities, from which journalists and today’s grade school teachers were educated, should have seen the wave forming at the horizon.
What I heard in response was denial.
The Israelis did know this war was coming. Israel found the entire plan and couldn't believe that Hamas could get that organized and follow through. Yet they watched each step be completed. Women soldiers monitoring Gaza tried repeatedly to warn the military generals that this was happening, but were ignored. Several generals admitted their guilt. There's much more to come out.
Before the yom kippur war started, they also saw all the movements from.the enemy but just couldnt believe they would attack, it didnt fit into their doctrine. That was 43 years ago. The new generation obviously didnt learn from the past.
I know! It's happened 3x! It's so tragic. I think the US warned Bibi.
Absolutely. I just heard in a podcast that the British halted Jewish immigration to British Mandate Palestine during the time of the Holocaust! 😞💔
That kills the unpeaceable western argument that Britain gave Palestine to the Israelis 😞💔
So often, you hear, "I didn't leave them: they left me"
Joshua wrote: "Liberals did not lose their credibility by caring about Palestinians. They lost it by acting as though caring about Palestinians required them to stop caring about Jews"
Liberals haven't cared about Jews for decades. But, some Jews are just discovering this now. Other Jews, so filled with cognitive dissonance at the prospect, still refuse to wake up to what's going on, because they would realize they've been supporting a cause that doesn't support them.
I'm sure there were German Jews who were decorated soldiers from WWI, who couldn't imagine that Germany would murder them just because they were Jewish. They thought their loyalty would price to Germany that they were one of the "good ones".
The so-called Jews who continue to support today's Democrats are engaging in the same wishful thinking. I also believe that these ethnic Jews have traded their Jewish religion for the religion of liberalism.
Yup! So what are the Jews going to do about this? And what is Israel going to do about it? Breaking with the liberal tradition is hard for Jews, even though we have another older one to apply in the modern world. But will we? Will Israel crush the Palestinians and drive them out of a land they do not belong in? Will Jews make life miserable for their enemies? Wait and see, but not too long.
Joshua nailed it, again. The term liberal has been highjacked, like the term " progressive ", for opposite nefarious meanings . Those " liberals" are totalitarians. They tolerate no other thinking. I have experienced it personally with friends and family.
" Progressives" are " regressively" attached to Islamists and to communist doctrines that have universally proven themselves useless and, indeed, regressive.
As for us, Jews, being divided has many times brought catastrophe upon the people. Individual Jews have been world changers, but as a people, we have demonstrated not a small measure of collective stupidity.
Whether it was the decision to ally against the Babylonians, or oppose and attack Rome, or decide Hamas could be managed, or for so many so-called Jews to vote for Mamdani, all these were terrible errors. But we are entitled to our errors .We are human. The question is why can't we learn from those errors.
At the same time, in spite of all these cataclysmic defeats, the people miraculously survived and Israel was re-born. So was Hebrew.
So many miracles. There will be more. It comes with the Jewish territory.
Liberalism's Achilles' Heel has always been that it can provide a HOW or a YES or NO but never a WHY, that it is based on proceduralism and abstractions like Liberty and Justice but has no normative moral core, no telos of the Good for its citizens. Liberalism is rooted in Protestantism—individualism, pluralism, emancipation, tolerance, free critical inquiry etc—but we only notice our Christian (and Jewish) roots now because they're rotted and severed. As we've become post-faith we've also become postliberal, meaning all the basic moral suppositions of Christianity (even if honored in the breach) that governed norms and relations have given way to a war of all against all, rooted in the raw tribalism that Liberalism was meant to counter.
But atop this sterile soil a new worldview was planted with a harder-edged morality (sorry for the mixed metaphor), the post-Marxist post-Christian faith called Social Justice. And Social Justice was perfectly designed for the secular, deracinated post-60s Westerner: simplistic, moralistic, essentially a modern crucifix pendant designed to signal that the bearer is on the side of the angels, as much therapeutic and political as religious and based on an updated Marxist theology: all victims are sacred, all oppressors evil, the West is wicked just based on its wealth and colonial history and all of its patrimony is a single uninterrupted hate crime against the marginalized (now sacralized) Other, the black/brown or sexual/religious minority, the last who shall now be first, who become the center of a new moral universe that all Good People know to center and atone toward.
And once the West handed over 2/3 generations of its children to the academic New Left (whose campuses have long been churches of the Social Justice faith), who gradually gained power by styling themselves as Official Defenders of the Oppressed, all the rest we've been living through was inevitable. Or to make the point more simply: if you allow others to install their morality in your children (not to mention the larger culture) don't be surprised when the moment comes and an entire generation has a different morality—and not just different in this case, but completely oppositional and designed to be an illiberal weapon that uses the Paradox of Tolerance to bully its way to total control. Thus many people now who were born in a world governed by Judeo-Christian ethics are living in a world governed by Leninist who/whom ethics.
Critical Anti-Zionism has been a strong branch of this new political religion since at least Munich 1972 and it's not surprising that few liberals can stand up to it. They've already long been conditioned to view Social Justice as not just morally pristine but socially mandatory, the moat that separates compassionate liberals from bigoted Deplorables, not to mention that their jobs, careers, futures, friends and families depend upon displaying loyalty and obedience toward it (their kids would kill them otherwise!). It wasn't 10/7 that proved this but 10/8: this is when we learned we were living in a different world now and that the old order was dead. Our liberal classes (well-compensated writers, journalists, artists, professors etc) were faced with a major moral test and failed miserably, showing no spine or ability to contradict any child shrieking about Justice and no ability to oppose the herd. (Even our exalted Ivy League couldn't be bothered to explain to their children the difference between a just, defensive war and a "genocide".)
Epidemics of mass social hatred and destruction are always enabled by mass outbreaks of cowardice. The supposed leaders of the liberal West have failed to stand up for all the principles they claim—it even turns out that Never Again! came with an expiration date—which is why liberalism is rotting and close to death.
The principle of Freedom and Love and Peace for all people, which is the emotional and moral foundation of Liberalism, sadly breaks down in times of War. This singular fact is so hard for Liberals to accept because the Real reason is that to do so challenges the Easy living and comfortable and cosseted living which Western Liberals think is their entitlement and Birthright. This fact, liberal laziness, is ruthlessly used and exploited by both Islamists and Islam itself which is a Religion of War. The Palestinians were offered Peace and a State FIVE TIMES. They chose war, and is the exact point at which Western Liberalism no longer applies. In case anyone says that The West has not been in this position before, say this: We in Western Europe suspended Liberalism in World War Two to defeat a merciless dictator. We would have to once again if threatened. All principles meet their match when confronted by reality. Gaza was ours. This is the Reality of the Limits of Principle. Sad but True.
Joshua, another excellent article.
I think the loss of credibility went beyond the Jewish community. Jews were simply one of the last groups to realize it because many of us had been part of that liberal umbrella for so long.
For me, the warning signs started well before October 7. Universities couldn't answer basic questions like "What is a woman?" Meritocracy gave way to identity politics. Equality increasingly became equity. Principles that were supposed to be universal became conditional, depending on who the victim was and who the accused was.
October 7 exposed that inconsistency more clearly than anything else. The rules suddenly changed when it came to Jews and Israel, and that's when many people—including lifelong liberals—began asking whether these principles were ever truly universal.
That's why your article resonates. It's not that liberals cared about Palestinians. It's that too many of them stopped applying the same moral standards to Jews. Once people see that principles have exceptions, trust is very hard to restore.
Joshua Hoffman misses the point. He describes the signs and symptoms of liberal rejection of Jews, but not the cause. For many Jews and liberals
(aka the Left), the power ascendancy of the Red/Green Alliance provides a gathering point for all the woke, vapid liberals who want to be on the side of the “winners“ and occupy a seat at the cool kids lunch table.
I agree, historically Jew’s embrace of liberalism was a moral framework. But liberalism left Jews in favor of power and influence. The liberal response to October 7th laid bare their true motivations. They doubled down on Jew hatred, lest their argument be usurped by the obvious complicity of the very people they were defending.
Liberal embrace of this movement comes with a cost as pastor Niemoller has said loud and clear.
Thanks for an outstanding article, Josh, that explains so well why I left the democratic party after 59 years of voting only for democrats. Unless Fetterman runs or the party reverses its position on Jews and Israel, I will not vote democratic again for the reasons you name.