November 5, 2024, was, for some Jews, a day of sadness. The defeat of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris—and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—seemed the repudiation of the kind of progressive politics many American and other Jews celebrated.
Both progressive candidates seemingly swung toward the center and reiterated their support for Israel, as had President Joe Biden. For others, former president Donald Trump’s re-election, with Ohio Senator J. D. Vance as his running mate, was a symbol of re-established security for Jews. Terrorism would no longer be ignored or supported. U.S.-Israeli relations would be strengthened once again. Israel could quickly achieve victory in its war on terror against Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Iran-backed proxies.
Yet, just as the lame duck period of Biden is unpredictable, in regards to support for Israel, so it is also an opportunity for Islamists in the West to launch further assaults on Israelis and Jews elsewhere—particularly after the degradation of Hamas and Hezbollah.
A pogrom just days before the commemoration of the Nazis’ Kristallnacht attack on the Jewish community has shaken world Jewry. Israelis visiting Amsterdam for a soccer game were attacked in a coordinated, premeditated campaign by Islamists. Disturbingly, the police seemed unable or unwilling to stop the attack, and many in the city—despite acts of heroism from some—refused to offer shelter to the victims. As if this wasn’t enough, the media predictably engaged in victim blaming, claiming that the Jews who were under attack provoked it by engaging in “Islamophobia.”
Luckily, nobody died, and many of the Israelis were successfully rescued. Numerous Dutch authorities condemned the incident and claimed to be investigating. Yet the problem remains, and likely will remain for a long time: unfettered migration of radical Muslims from unstable countries, with no interest in integration into Western society, and a visceral, systemic hatred against Jews. These migrants also pose a grave threat to women, the LGBT community, democracy, atheists, Christians, liberal Muslims, and, more generally, the Western way of life.
Yet, for whatever reason, the political and largely progressive establishment has ignored this problem—and the demands of its voters. We the People throughout the Western world have been warning of this grave threat for decades, oftentimes while also warning against the far-right’s demonization of Muslims as a whole. Yet our warnings have gone unheeded, allowing for the media to gaslight Jews, Zionists, and concerned citizens as a whole. And that has ushered in support for far-right political parties and organizations across the West.
The media predictably engaged in victim blaming, claiming that the Jews who were under attack provoked it by engaging in “Islamophobia.”
I find it interesting that the attack happened just a day after Trump’s re-election. One of the central themes of the 2024 cycle, which appears to have gained the GOP full control of Congress as well, was that voters are tired of bad immigration policies. This isn’t a problem unique to the U.S.-Mexican border, however—it is one that too many on the political left have long kicked down the road. Unfortunately, there are early indications that the establishment has no intention of listening to voters and changing policies. Just listen to the alleged “expert analysts” on mainstream media outlets, who are continuing to blame “misinformation” or “racism” for the defeat of Vice President Harris. Democratic governors are vowing to “Trump-proof” their states from his future administration, essentially rejecting the democratic will of the voters—of which illegal immigration is a huge concern. Bernie Sanders suggests that Democrats lost due to arming Israel—basically, that the party did not move far enough to the left.
Some may ask why I am linking the Amsterdam attack to the U.S. election. The reason is that this is a deeper problem within the West’s establishment governments: they have surrendered to the far-left extremists in institutionalizing Islamism.
It is true that America leads, and so other countries will follow suit with many of our policies (in some cases). Yet it’s also true that the Democratic Party under the Obama administration brought far-left worldviews and policies to America from the European Union. Just consider the election analysts who prioritized the concerns of the Watermelon People over a substantially larger portion of the American electorate: Jews. Muslims and Arabs vote in lower numbers than Jews, historically, and already were hesitant to support the Democrats over the gender issue in K–12 public schools.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration was widely praised by American Jews—even right-leaning ones—for its initial support for Israel and Jews after the tragic events of October 7, 2023. Trump’s post-2020 shunning of Netanyahu, isolationism, poorly-timed statements criticizing Israeli military strategy against terrorists, and mysterious relations with anti-Jewish figures had already alienated the overwhelmingly Democratic Jewish American community.
Yet the Biden Administration began criticizing Israel much more harshly, prioritizing humanitarian aid to Gaza over freeing hostages (which include U.S. citizens) and destroying terrorism, and slow-walked weapons deliveries to the Jewish state in order to appeal to a small and unreliable segment of voters who were anyways unlikely to vote for the Democrats after their (tepid) support for Israel. The Democratic Party added further insult to the Jewish American community by downplaying campus anti-Semitism, placing the rampant anti-Semitism in the U.S. on the same playing field as “Islamophobia”—essentially “All Lives Mattering” the issue, while comparing Donald Trump to Hitler for the umpteenth time.
In the post-election analysis, one now suggestions that it was the anti-Democrat protest vote from progressive anti-Zionists and Muslims in Michigan that cost Harris her victory. In fact, it’s likely the fact that Jews voted in historic numbers in well-placed areas for Donald Trump based on his record on Israel.
The Democrats may have won most overall Jewish support, but no Republican has ever garnered as much as Trump just did. Harris’ refusal to choose the popular, moderate Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate due to the fear of alienating anti-Semites within the party was another serious concern for American Jews, who were already unsure if she would crack down on anti-Semitism in the U.S. and keep supporting the Jewish state. True, this may have been due to other considerations, yet Shapiro may have won her an important swing state. The fact of the matter is that the Jewish vote has been taken advantage of—something other minorities in the U.S. realized this time around when they supported Democrats by far lower margins.
Even now, many pundits suggest that the Harris campaign’s failure to more forcefully criticize Israel, compared to Biden, lost her the Michigan contest. There has been no serious widespread acknowledgement that abandoning Israel and marginalizing concerns over left-wing anti-Semitism bled support from the larger and more loyal Jewish vote from various blue and purple states and cities. And while perhaps there is some satisfaction in seeing this realization and political shift, however slight—as well as the understanding among many voters that the Watermelon Crowd betrayed them—the sad reality is that the Democratic Party will continue, in all likelihood, to support the normalization and institutionalization of Islamist ideology, in the academy, the government, and cultural spaces.
This is not yet as large of a problem as it is in countries like Canada or over in Europe, and perhaps the Trump administration will be able to prevent this from gaining traction. Yet, the fact remains that so many of our allies betrayed us anyways. One thing that is known for certain is that we as Jews can no longer allow ourselves to be gaslit and taken for granted. In fact, We the People more generally no longer can.
It was by the grace of G-d that the Amsterdam pogrom didn’t end up worse than it did, but the event was disturbing enough. If we are to truly prevent such attacks from occurring—whether by citizens on college campuses or new arrivals from foreign countries—then we must have the courage to demand not just better, but the best from our candidates and elected officials. Never again must mean never again, always.
