Israel’s fairweather friends are fuelling anti-Semitism

Who deserves greater opprobrium: the true anti-Semite, or the opportunistic politician who once supported Israel and the Jews, but who now renounces that support in the quest for electoral success?

The question has to be asked in the US and the UK. Both countries are currently beset by no shortage of genuine anti-Semites, including Islamists who are aligned with a growing horde on the political far left and far right. But now each country is also home to a prominent ‘adaptable’ politician, both of whom are coincidentally Jewish, who sing from a different songbook than once they did.

In the US, that politician is Rahm Emanuel, whose résumé includes chief of staff to President Obama, former mayor of Chicago and US ambassador to Japan under President Biden. A longstanding top Democratic consigliere, he is making overtures about running for president in 2028, although he has not formally announced his intentions. Emanuel had traditionally been a strong supporter of Israel – his father was born in Jerusalem. For years, Emanuel voiced his support for Israel and was actually a civilian volunteer with the Israel Defence Forces during the first Gulf War, at the beginning of the 1990s.

However, in the midst of a Democratic Party where support for Israel is now a political death wish, Emanuel has had a Damascene conversion. He recently advanced the unsubstantiated and largely debunked charge that laid blame on Israel for Palestinian starvation during the Gaza War. On American television, he recently said: ‘The days of taxpayers subsidising Israel militarily, that’s over. No more financial aid.’ And referencing the current war in Iran, he said: ‘The US should never spill any blood for the state of Israel’s security.’ At one time, an interpretation of events like that would have been unimaginable coming from Emanuel.

His counterpart in the UK is Zack Polanski, leader of the surging Green Party of England and Wales, a feature of which is barely concealed contempt for Israel and Jews. In a fawning interview in the Guardian (where else?) last year, Polanski said he grew up in ‘a very Zionist household, raised to really believe that Israel was the centre of everything and must be defended at all costs’. He unabashedly admits that this is ‘very different to my politics now’.

That is an understatement, to say the least. Polanski has excoriated Israel for its response to the 7 October massacre, including accusing it of genocide. Asked by a journalist in April over the escalating, and in some cases lethal, attacks on Jews in England, Polanski delivered an equivocating response: ‘There’s a conversation to be had about whether it’s a perception of unsafety or whether it’s actual unsafety, but neither is acceptable.’ While the public anticipates that conversation, the fortunes of the Green Party continue to rise.

The ostensible reason that Emanuel and Polanski give for their new pandering is that ‘Israel has changed’ since 1948. This is hardly a revelation on the order of the discovery of gravity or the introduction of quantum mechanics. Of course Israel has changed; what country has not changed over the past eight decades? The question neither of these political creatures has asked is why Israel has changed.

The military threat from Iran and its proxies is exponentially greater than ever before, and the insidious international propaganda campaign is even more intense – abetted by former supporters like the United Nations. Israel has been forced to respond in ways not always laudable, but rather than acknowledge this and the fact that Israel remains a beacon of moral leadership and a defender of the values the West was built on, Emanuel and Polanski have committed to cutting the cloth of their beliefs to the odious fashions of the day.

So who is worse, genuine anti-Semites, or these sycophantic poseurs looking to advance their political standing?

At least you know where you stand with real anti-Semites. Some may be cunning, some may be fools and many may just enjoy Nazi cosplaying, but the dangerous ones usually make their intentions known in word, if not in deed.

Political fakirs like Emanuel and Polanski come off as more acceptable, but do not doubt the lasting damage they can do by legitimising anti-Semitism in the larger polity. Emanuel will almost certainly never become president of the United States, but he lends credibility to the expanding anti-Semitic wing of the Democratic Party and to some extent the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican Party. Polanski has a similarly slim chance of becoming prime minister of the UK, but he gives a faint whiff of respectability to the Islamo-fascist wing of the Green Party.

The real anti-Semites deserve all the contempt the world can muster. But craven opportunists like Zack Polanski and Rahm Emanuel are also beneath contempt. History will not be kind to them for breathing life into this foul bigotry, however they might try to justify it.

Cory Franklin’s The Covid Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion As It Happened, is now available on Amazon in Kindle and book form.