When ‘leftists’ use ‘antisemitism’ smears to weaken Palestinian solidarity

 

While it’s near impossible to sidestep nationalist, imperialist and supremacist ideas, “leftists” should at least not promote prevailing anti-Palestinian ideological strictures. Despite the horrors Israel’s unleashed in Gaza, some who ‘stand with Palestine’ still prioritize Jewish sensitivities over opposing Canadian support for genocide.

In a hundred days 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, 60,000 seriously injured and 2 million displaced in Gaza. Half a million in Gaza are facing famine conditions and basically everyone is hungry. If Israeli-imposed hunger, disease and lack of medical care persists hundreds of thousands may end up dying. And the state perpetrating this genocide has long encaged, occupied and ethnically cleansed those it is slaughtering.

Amidst the genocide that Canada has enabled, some self-declared leftists still devote significant energy to smearing anti-genocide activists or trying to have their speaking events cancelled for purported “antisemitism”. Two months ago, some individuals associated with Independent Jewish Voices pushed to cancel my participation in a Palestinian Youth Movement and International League of People’s Struggles event in Ottawa. More recently, the anonymous X account Jane Austen Marxist posted, “In case there’s any doubt about Yves Engler’s antisemitism at this point (there isn’t)” atop a screenshot highlighting a passage from one of my articles. It noted, “With outsized influence in Hollywood and other domains, Jewish cultural influence is significant.”... A hodgepodge of rightists and leftists liked or retweeted the statement.

There was no attempt to show how my statement was incorrect or even to explain how it was anti-Jewish. For them, stating that Jews have outsized influence in Hollywood can only be a “trope” or “dog whistle” and thus unmentionable. But my statement is factual, as this 2014 Globe and Mail article demonstrates. In a stunning 2008 Los Angeles Times article headlined “Who runs Hollywood? C’mon” Joel Stein writes:

“How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah. The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents)… The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.”  (more...)

When ‘leftists’ use ‘antisemitism’ smears to weaken Palestinian solidarity