Using accusations of bigotry in order to shield political allies is nothing new. Want to establish your moral superiority in a debate? Just call the other person racist. Need to break yourself out of an intellectual corner? Yelling "bigot" may just do the trick.

In recent months, figures on the political Left have worked overtime in an effort to paint those who attack George Soros, a billionaire who is a major political donor and happens to be Jewish, as antisemitic.

THE LEFT'S LATEST EFFORT TO CONTROL THE COURT

Thus far, the accusations have largely come from news outlets and liberal commentators. However, on Friday, Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, joined the choir. She wrote on Twitter, “Irrespective of how one feels about George Soros’s politics or policies, it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on him rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric. In bygone eras, the antisemites invoked the Rothschild family to advance their conspiracies about Jews. Today they use Soros to do so.”

Twitter users were quick to point out that, in 2019, when Republicans disingenuously accused Democrats who attacked Sheldon Adelson, another billionaire political donor who is Jewish, of antisemitism, Lipstadt wrote “Mayor Pete said Adelson is too powerful. Republicans say that’s antisemitism. No. Not. Saying Adelson is too powerful because he’s a Jew is antisemitic. Saying he’s too powerful because he’s rich is not. STOP WEAPONIZING ANTISEMITISM.”

That is quite the contrast for two cases that do not have substantive differences aside from which political party the attacks were directed towards. This becomes doubly true when one considers that there was no condemnation from Lipstadt when other Democrats, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), were using far harsher rhetoric about Adelson — saying “can’t buy us,” taking out full newspaper ads featuring stats about his money, and discussing him in length in a video series titled “The Faces of Greed.”

Lipstadt has always been a thoughtful voice on these issues — she wrote an interesting book in 2019 titled Antisemitism: Here and Now — and has never hesitated to call out those both on the Right and Left. It is precisely for this reason that it is unfortunate she has fallen into this type of partisan politics.

The truth is that much like Sheldon Adelson, George Soros donates large sums of money to causes that not everyone agrees with. In particular, he has been quite open about his significant financial support, over $40 million dollars worth, for left-wing prosecutors, even writing a piece in the Wall Street Journal last year titled “Why I Support Reform Prosecutors.” With 20% of Americans now represented by one of these DAs, and many of them presiding over significant crime waves, it makes sense that he will be the target of political attacks. Shocking examples of Soros-funded DAs’ policies are everywhere now.

From this, we can conclude that criticism, and even standard political attacks, against Soros are perfectly legitimate. This is not to say that there aren’t times when attacks can cross over into antisemitism — a look at the darker parts of Twitter or the internet can confirm this — but rather that stating basic facts does qualify as one of those times.

Lipstadt was right in her first tweet: attacking a big-money donor for a funding policy one does not like is totally fair game.

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Mislabeling certain things as antisemitism is not only wrong because it ascribes prejudice to those who harbor none. It is also dangerous because there are real unintended consequences that come along with it: namely, that people will take actual antisemitism less seriously. This is concerning at a time when one of the largest music stars and cultural icons, Kanye West, has come out as a dedicated Jew-hater and orthodox Jews continue to be randomly beaten up on the streets of New York.

There is real antisemitism to be worried about right now. But normal attacks on a controversial political donor should not be at the top of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism’s list.

Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.