The War Against the Jews Is a War Against Capitalism

Plus, another celebrity leaves California for Florida.

In a December 5, 2023 New York Sun column I argued that “The War Against the Jews Is a War Against Capitalism.”

Since then, additional data points have accumulated. Some highlights, or lowlights:

On February 7, 2024, in Manhattan, BNY Mellon’s New York headquarters is attacked by anti-Israel protesters.

On February 27, 2024, the Washington Free Beacon reports on Mohamed Abdou, who is the Arcapita Visiting Professor in Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University for Spring 2024. The Free Beacon notes that “While Abdou has already worked to organize anti-Israel protests at Columbia, he encourages those who oppose the Jewish state to go further. ‘DON'T just go to Pro-Palestinian rallies DON'T just post on social media,’ he wrote in November. ‘ORGANIZE revolutionary alternatives to capitalism…’”

On February 28, 2024, the New York Times published a profile of the U.S. Air Force airman, Aaron Bushnell, who committed suicide by lighting himself afire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington. The Times reports, “In recent years, according to those who knew him, Mr. Bushnell had grown increasingly distant from both his conservative upbringing and his career in the military, throwing himself into leftist and anarchist activism, talking often about alleviating poverty and opposing capitalism.” The article goes on, “In November 2022, fresh off a vacation to Hawaii with his younger brother, Mr. Bushnell showed up alone at an event hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation in San Antonio, where he quickly made a new group of friends.”

What is the Party for Socialism and Liberation? Wikipedia describes it as “a communist Party in the United States.”

It was familiar to me before the Times article about the self-immolating airman because one of the key anti-Israel organizers at Harvard, Prince Williams, wrote a November 2023 Harvard Crimson column about how he spoke and found a strong sense of community at the Boston Liberation Center “run by volunteers from the Boston chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.”

The takeaway from this is that the defense of the Jews and of free enterprise are intertwined. If the Jews think they can ignore the attacks on capitalism, or if the capitalists think they can ignore the attacks on the Jews, they are mistaken. It’s one fight. And as Dara Horn pointed out in her excellent Atlantic article about campus antisemitism, the “apartheid” smear so often used against Israel these days is just a repeat of the old Soviet “Zionism is racism” lie.

Trump’s legislative achievements:  A Wall Street Journal front-page retrospective and interview with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, says of McConnell, “He also shepherded Trump’s sole major legislative accomplishment, the 2017 tax bill, through the Senate.”

It seems strange to contend, in a news article, that the tax bill was Trump’s “sole major legislative accomplishment.” You could make a strong case that the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill enacted in 2018, and the CARES Act, a March 2020 Coronavirus relief and stimulus bill, also qualify as major legislative accomplishments, as did the follow-up Covid-19 aid measures passed during Trump’s presidency. Trump also signed into law a bill creating the 988 suicide prevention hotline, which has received more than 8 million calls, texts, and chats since launch.

Where were the editors? It’d be easy enough to just dial this back to: “He also shepherded a major Trump legislative accomplishment, the 2017 tax bill, through the Senate.”

Stallone to Florida: We’ve been tracking the migration from high-tax, high-regulation states such as New York and California to lower-tax, lower-regulation states like Florida and Texas.

The latest to move is actor Sylvester Stallone of “Rocky” and “Rambo” fame. “Welcome to the Free State of Florida,” the state’s first lady commented.

California Senate: A February 28, 2024, Wall Street Journal news article reports, “If Schiff faces Garvey, however, he is virtually guaranteed victory in the heavily Democratic state. No Republican has won statewide office in California since 2006.” As of February 20, 2024, Democrats are about 10 million of the state’s 22 million registered voters, or less than half. The election is some months away. A lot can happen between now and then. A Republican victory is unlikely, but just because it hasn’t happened since 2006 doesn’t mean it won’t happen ever again. Republicans have recently been winning some competitive House seats in California. The thing about politics is there are no guarantees. Nothing ruins a guarantee like the complacency and corruption that come with one-party governments. They tend eventually to create counterreactions.