With antisemitism rising across the globe, from assaults to graffiti, a new analysis finds the political motivation of perpetrators skews decisively to the left, with extreme progressives far more likely to commit such attacks as compared to Islamists or far-right activists like neo-Nazis.
The new findings come as the Democratic National Committee braces for potential unrest from anti-Israel protesters at its nominating convention next week in Chicago just days after presumptive nominee Kamala Harris was confronted at a New York fundraiser by a protest that required some arrests.
The weekly Global Antisemitism Report published by the Combat Antisemitism Movement analyzed 113 incidents that targeted Jewish victims worldwide and found that 57.5% of the perpetrators were identified as far leftists, 22.1% of them were Islamists, 11.5% were unknown and 8.9% were done by far-right extremists.
But what are the counting as an "antisemitic incident"? Surely these are all ambiguous cases.
One of the incidents documented was a man yelling "Free Palestine" while stabbing a Jewish man who was leaving Shabbat services. The attacker fled and the Jewish man was taken to a hospital in stable condition.
Oh, never mind.
The report showed that 73 of the antisemitic attacks were anti-Zionism attacks, 21 of the attacks were labeled as "classic antisemitism," 10 were done by Islamists and four were unattributable.
I don't know if a group combating antisemitism should be branding some antisemitism as "classic antisemitism."
Oh Bill? You'll like Bill. He's a classic antisemite! Just first-class antisemitism all the way. None of this modern, newfangled antisemitic frippery, just the tried-and-true classics. Just a certain je ne sais quoi in his Jew Hatred.
Meanwhile, the DNC is bracing for classic antisemitic Mostly Peaceful protests.
Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters were expected to gather at the Democratic National Convention on its opening day on Monday to assail the Biden administration's position on Israel as it wages its war in Gaza.
A one-mile march organized by umbrella group "March on the DNC" was scheduled to take place at a park outside the Chicago convention arena hours before President Joe Biden addresses the gathering where Democratic delegates will publicly nominate Vice President Kamala Harris as their presidential candidate.
Organizers had sought a longer route so that all the protesters could walk, said Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesman for March, comprised of more than 200 groups.
Many people are coming from Palestinian and Arab communities in Illinois and neighboring states, organizers said last week. The coalition also includes groups advocating for a range of causes, including reproductive rights and racial justice.
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Dozens of Muslim delegates and their allies, angry at U.S. support for Israel's offensive in Gaza, are seeking changes in the Democratic platform and plan to press for an arms embargo, putting the party on guard for disruptions to high-profile speeches at the convention.
Fritz, who wore a T-shirt reading "Ceasefire delegate" said he supported Harris as the nominee to beat Trump, but would not vote for her, given the Biden administration's support of Israel.
Meanwhile, an empowered female SJW acting as John Fetterman's communications director feels that she needs to Bring Her Whole Person to Work and denounce her boss's position on Israel.
She feels he should have a more "nuanced" take on jihadist savagery.
Fetterman, for his part, is boycotting the Convention.
John Fetterman is skipping this week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and, to hear it from him, it has nothing--literally nothing--to do with him scotch-taping photos of the Israeli hostages to his Senate office walls. Or attacking fellow Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar for falsely blaming a hospital bombing in Gaza on Israel. ("It's truly disturbing that Members of Congress rushed to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy in Gaza. Who would take the word of a group that just massacred innocent Israeli civilians over our key ally?") Or comparing the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia to a neo-Nazi rally ("Add some tiki torches and it's Charlottesville for these Jewish students," he tweeted).
Nor is it about "Fetterman Alumni for Peace"--a group of former Fetterman campaign staffers--publicly scolding their old boss: "It is not too late to change your stance and stand on the righteous side of history."
"I've got three young kids, and they're out of school," the Pennsylvania senator said of his absence this week in Chicago, waving off the suggestion that he might not be welcome there. "That's four days I can spend with my children."
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[I]t's hard to imagine Fetterman being welcome in Chicago--as strong a sign as any of the paradigm shift that has taken place inside his party.
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It's true that he'd embraced border security, but his real crime--the thing that had alienated him from the progressives--was Israel. They don't let him forget it.
In November, protesters outside the Capitol booed him. In January, anti-Israel protesters descended on Fetterman's home in Braddock. (The senator took to the roof, waving an Israeli flag.) Online activists called him Genocide John. And every Friday for months, protesters have demonstrated outside his Philadelphia office, chanting, "Let Gaza live," and "Cease-fire now." (The protests are called "Fridays at Fetterman's.")
There are even people on his current staff who think he is wrong.
"I don't agree with him" about Israel and Gaza, Carrie Adams, Fetterman's communications director, told me in a phone call, after my interview with the senator ended.
"I have a sense that his international views are a lot less nuanced than my generation, because when he was growing up, it was might makes right, and for my generation and younger who, of course, are the ones protesting this, they have a much more nuanced view of the region," Adams added.
I've been a reporter since the summer of 1998, when I covered Bill Clinton's trip to Martha's Vineyard for the Vineyard Gazette. This was the first time I'd ever encountered anyone--on Capitol Hill or anywhere else, on the record, off the record, on background, whatever--criticizing "the principal."
It's true that young people especially disagree with Fetterman. Sixty-five percent of today's college students have a favorable opinion of the pro-Hamas encampments that took over so many university campuses last spring and are now threatening to explode back to life--on campus and at the convention, where as many as 100,000 protesters are expected.
But still. If sporting a keffiyeh and retweeting whatever the Gaza Ministry of Health just said is how young progressives signal to each other that they're in the in-group, that they've gone full radical chic, then Fetterman is whatever the opposite of that is.
Which doesn't seem to bother him.