“On Saturday, after sixteen years of siege, Hamas militants broke out of Gaza. More than 1,300 Israelis were subsequently killed with over one hundred more taken hostage…”
That’s from the letter Coates signed decrying Israel that was sent to The New York Review of Books. His was the first name on the list of signatures.
The letter, written a week after the October 7 massacre, was a litany of Israel’s misdeeds and sins. The closest the signers could come to acknowledging the slaughter, the mass rapes, the mutilations, the killing of babies and the kidnapping of toddlers were the two sentences above. The bit about the “militants” who “broke out.”
Moral failure on this scale probably needs to be remembered.
The reflexive view that the world is made up of oppressors and the oppressed or victims is simply the new norm. If it were up to me and I could do it with the wiggle of my nose i transport these people back in time to when the Romans ruled the place called Israel.....Then they would understand real oppressors and the oppressed.
If it were up to me, the "oppressed" of Park Slope, Berkeley, and the Ivies would have to go to SERE so they could get a little hint of what the word really means.
Agree... Short and to the point.. World history is the conqueror and the conquered.. The winner typically took all and loser faced whatever came their way. All the noise in between is just that... Peoples are cruel and some more evil then others. In todays technology driven world culture wars are just like propaganda battles in the past.. and in societies like the US where people have way too much discretionary time they fill it with BS that supports their selfish motivations.
Yes, exactly. Because that’s how Rome operated. It conquered anyone and everything, and you either became a Roman or you were murdered. In Judaism we honor and remember when we became a displaced people from Roman occupation in Israel to this day (among other tragedies), known as Tisha B’Av.
Christendom's past contains comparable barbarity. Probably few cultures don't - the Biblical Jews included. At one point, Islamic societies were the exemplars of civilization. Now, generally speaking, Christians are far better, Muslims far worse, and Jews continue to survive despite centuries of attempts to wipe them out.
I really thought more of Coates. One of his reasons for deciding Israel practices apartheid is that PA residents have different license plates. Of course the do. They live under a different government. Arab Israelis have Israeli plates, Arab Palestinians have PA plates. I mean I third grader could understand this. He points out the separate PA roads. Ok. Again an Arab citizen if Israel can use the Israeli road while non citizens can’t. Simply not apartheid, which is separation by race or ethnicity. That doesn’t exist.
Third grade intellectual deduction would be welcomed. Is Coates an idiot or a type of evil liar by omission of facts that then would prove him an idiot?
Really rather stupid or evil. Those are the choices.
There’s an old saying, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That’s what is going on here. Seeing things through a singular lens.
If you've ever read any of Coates' writings you would understand him as simultaneously both. And an awful writer at that. It's a struggle to just get through.
Thank you, BradK. I was beginning to wonder if I had entered the fifth dimension… Are these commenters familiar with Coates work? Because his statement aligns very well with his weltanshauung and prior works. I see no inconsistency at all.
All I can think of is that he was uncritically accepting whatever he was being told by evil liars -- so hard to think of him as an idiot but being uncritical is pretty idiotic. It really drives me crazy when people say "they have Jewish roads and Arab roads -- that apartheid!" Well it would be if that was true but it freaking isn't, never has been and never will be.
Absolutely. I used to read him on Salon in the late 2000s-early 2010s before they went full identity politics and then developed TDS and found him thought provoking, however I always suspected that he was somewhat willfully blind and unable to see outside of his dogma. That Quillette article unfortunately seems to verify my suspicions. To my disappointment he now strikes me as a self righteous bigot. He has become what he has always claimed to hate.
Note the passive-voice characterization of mass murder as something that just happened, like it was inevitable. The "oppressed" have no agency, responsibility, or guilt.
"Ta-Nehisi Coates, considered by many to be America’s leading public intellectual on race"
Certainly not by anyone outside the gilded ivory towers of out-of-touch academia. He is an embittered and bloodthirsty racist, whose meandering diatribes wander the realms of the imagination seeking corroboration how the White Devils are the plague of the human race and are singularly responsible for the sufferings of mankind since being cast out of garden of Eden.
The only people who embrace his hateful spew are the White Guilt brigade so they have something to discuss over $7 lattes at the Starbucks. No less a fraud and race huckster than Henry Rogers. MLK would be appalled.
Agree re Coates, and his leftist elite groupies. For the benefit of those groupies, I add a clarification of your reference to Henry Rogers: "a/k/a Ibram X Kendi."
I’m not surprised that Coates is on the opposite side of Hughes and rationality now. He was physically and literally on the opposite side of Hughes during summer 2019 when arguing for and against reparations in Congress.
“What’s more, it is not the European Jews but the Mizrahi Jews—who are difficult to visually distinguish from Palestinians—that form most of the voting base of the right-wing parties that Israel’s critics consider to be the truly racist ones.”
Fascinating. Another example of something I’ve learned in the FP & would rarely see anywhere else - because it doesn’t “fit the narrative”.
He is absolutely correct in that. The Mizrahi Jews who were expelled from Arab and Muslim countries mostly favor the right. In terms of their looks, these are brown and black Jews.
For those who haven't done so yet, I recommend going back to Hughes' article and click every link. There's a wealth of context and information on those pages.
To that add the Sephardim and you'll find the Ashkenazi to be not so prevalent. The leftis simply following their divisive protocol. They need to create victimhood in order to divide and then conquer.
Many (I have no idea what % but a visible amount over the years) of Ashkenazi have left and are the Israelis one encounters here in the US. Maybe this contributed to the rightward lurch. The tumult over the judicial reforms also had secular Ashkenazi scrambling for European citizenships to leave a country that was no longer “theirs”.
If you ask my Mother you'll be informed that Ashkenazim aren't REALLY Jews. She also takes a dim view of the Mizrahi. Occasionally I enjoy sharing my belief that the Ashkenazi are most likelythe apogee of the human intellect.
Selection has to have something to work with, in this case I think it is The Book. If there is anything to it, the Jewish emphasis on literacy and commentary would probably do it. Similar might be said of the Chinese; with the Confucian emphasis on public examination to get on in their world.
Also the less intelligent tend to get killed off at a higher rate which obviously kept them from reproducing at the same levels as the ones that saw it coming and escaped.
There was a genetic bottleneck around 800-1000 AD. The pogroms or equivalents had reduced the population to about 5-800 Jews. We’re all at most 4-5 cousins apparently.
Just like all the ex-Soviet Bloc folk who comment here in vehement opposition to all Leftist crap have experienced Communism up close and personal: the Mizrahi have experienced Muslim hate up close and personal.
Bravo Coleman! People throw the word brilliant around, but in this case that adjective doesn’t do your piece justice. Thoughtful, insightful, and full of facts that the legacy media doesn’t deem worthy to
print since it doesn’t fit their agenda. Keep writing and shining a clear light on what needs to be said. In a world where facts and history take a back seat to overwrought opinions and misguided theories, we need your calm common sense approach to debunk the nonsense. I can’t wait until your book comes out.
The book Israelophobia by Jake Wallis Simons goes into great detail about these claims and where they originate from. Ch 4 --Falsification. Many of these claims date back to the SIG or Sionistskiya Gosudarstva The man who initially headed the project was Yuri Andropov, ironically someone who hid his Jewish heritage. The aim was to create a rabid and demented hatred of American Zionism. The Apartheid smear first got big play in the pamphlet 'Zionism and Aparthied' which is a reworking of Yevgeny Yevseyev's Fascism Under the Blue Star. Yevseyeyev was prolific Zionologist as the Kremlin disinformation specialists were called.
It is interesting that the falsehoods persist to this day and are so readily swallowed by the Far Left. If you have not read the book, it is very interesting and does help to explain the far Left's obsession with Israel and indeed Jews.
There was also a split in the Black civil rights movement between MLK jr who supported Israel and the Nation of Islam adherents like Farrkhan who were opposed. Farrakhan is of course a known anti-Semite. Angela Davis was further radicalised in the PLO camps. Because the Soviet influence, it was a popular far Left cause and seen as a way to destabilize the west.
Hughes did speak about the Mizrahi Jews who were expelled from Middle Eastern countries starting in 1950 and who make up slightly more than half of the Israeli Jewish population. Out of the entire Jewish population in Yemen one remains. Before WW2, there were 70k. There are 100 Yemeni Jews living in the US and 400k living in Israel. (One could suggest that Arab leaders in forcibly expelling their Jewish population ended up putting more population pressure on Israel and indeed the area). When one speaks of ethnic cleansing, compare and contrast the Jewish population in countries like Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq etc pre 1950 to what it is in 1960 and indeed today. Note they did not take Palestinian refugees in return either.
And when we are speaking of the Jewish refugees from Europe, it is worth remembering that a number were still sheltering in former concentrations camps like Dachau (a place where Patton vomited) back in the early 1950s. I know this because my grandfather was a serving US Naval officer at the time and posted to Frankfurt. My grandmother who disliked being bored, helped with the refugee camps including getting people resettled in Israel. She also kept a scrapbook. One of the pages deals with Dachau. How long should the world have kept them in the former concentration camps? They were unable to return home for various reasons.
Where are the descendants of the refugees supposed to go? Israel has provided an answer for thousands who had nowhere else to go. Who still have nowhere else to go.
Thank you, Michelle! Insightful as always, and I enjoyed reading about your personal connection to the issue through your family history. I would add that to the various reasons these Jews were unable to return home was that in countries like Poland and Ukraine, when they tried to return home, many were slaughtered by their former neighbors, who had looted, ransacked and moved into their homes. “Go back to Poland”?? I don’t think so.
I will try and remember to take a photo of the relevant page in the scrapbook for you Chana (and post tomorrow on my weekly round up). I thought it so interesting and so very heart-breaking. Living in a former charnel house even with the black wreaths on the ovens, the gates open and good food is not a fate I would wish on anyone.
And people don't really want to speak about what was going on in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary etc as the Iron Curtain descended. Or indeed how long it took for the refugee problem to get sorted after the German surrender.
I look forward to seeing that. So very important to preserve this history as more and more people try to deny it (as Eisenhower foresaw).
It's hard to wrap my head around the sort of trauma the survivors lived with daily, with no counseling or emotional support. I can think of five local families off the top of my head who came here with nothing but memories of murder and misery, who built fortunes, and give hundreds of thousands of dollars in philanthropy every year. (Compare to the now-mandatory safe spaces on campus and literal screams of outrage if someone dares to disagree with their uninformed opinions, while clutching their lattes and laptops.)
Yes to all of this! Just a note to add that pogroms against Jews in the Middle East began well before the creation of Israel. There was a Jewish community in GAZA slaughtered by their Arab neighbors in 1929.
Coates' clumsy attempt at the analogy between the Jim Crow South and the Israel/Palestine conflict shows how shallow his argumentation is. It's as if he hasn't bothered to learn history outside of the North American subcontinent - and is thus incapable of seeing the world through a different lens. Imagine thinking the world and all its problems are just that simple. It's quite facile honestly. Perhaps he is better suited for comic books than journalism, public conversation, or writing about civil rights.
Coates is a leftist idiot who spews racist, race-baiting, Jew-hating cliches that our leftist elites pretend are insightful. This is their way of pandering to the black left.
Fantastic piece. I love Coleman’s work whether podcast or writing. He’s one of our brightest stars in the current culture wars. Brilliant. We need him. And yes: Young people today just simply don’t think. Critical and independent thinking is long gone, replaced by dumb tribal warfare and TikTok. It’s pretty damn pathetic. I wish they cared about facts, history, debate, knowledge, but they simply don’t. That time is over. We’re in Orwell Land now. It happened, people.
“It happened” because there was a decades-long ideological revolution in the universities, specifically the education departments that trained future teachers in critical theory. Thus began the substitution of logic and respect for objectivity with identity politics, intersectionality and the privileging of feelings over facts, all bundled together with Marxism.
These young people you wish cared about “facts, history, debate and knowledge” didn’t stand a chance. They have no idea what you’re talking about, except to say that you are obviously some brand of oppressor whose racist worldview needs to be dismantled.
It is interesting how those who decry colonization actually colonize conflicts around the world. It's not just a simplistic view to say everything is about skin color, its ignorant and insulting. Peoples, nations, ethnicities have their own histories having nothing to do with America's racial issues.
These "decolonizers," with their Western-centric view of global controversies, ignore the actual underlying issues that stoke much of the world's active conflicts. In effect, these decolonizers dehumanize those who are enmeshed in ongoing internecine tragedies by making everything about the color of a person's skin.
Yeah. And many “victims” in America (especially elites) are upset that anyone is disagreeing with them about Israel/ Palestine. A stanford physician who is a minority is talking about how unfair the world is and that the Palestinians are slaughtered bc they are brown/ Muslim etc-. like raging posts. Another physician (minority) is posting all the colonialism/ genocide- feel what it is to be brown stuff on social media. I say nothing but I’m just shocked. They have been taught stupid concepts and they’ve been taught to think with emotion and not logic. Smart people are appearing so dumb these days.
There is a huge difference between book learning and the ability to think critically and employ common sense. Some of the stupidest people have a myriad of degrees next to their name.
A lot of the brightest believe the silliest and stupidest things. Lorenzo Wareby documents this phenomenon to exhaustion over at his Substack, 'Lorenzo from Oz', and cross posted to Helen Dale's, Not On Your Team, But Always Fair' .
It is said that “ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Way too many good people have been cowed into silence by shrieking “progressive” harpies. Consider taking a stand, as there are many more who agree with you than with those minority physicians you mentioned.
I do try. I definitely never have been the one to just parrot talking points because it’s cool. I always counter with my own knowledge after dissecting these different situations...and it often doesn’t score points... but I don’t care- bc to me the situation is too grave to not at least try to plant some seeds of doubt in their religious beliefs.
From the North African Atlantic coast to the Takla Makan Desert in China, from Aden to the Caucasus remains land colonised by Muslim Arabs between c. 625-750AD. Later colonisation by Muslim Turks extends to Kazan 400 miles due east of Moscow and to Bengal and the Karnatic in India . 90% of it remains colonised to this day and 95% of those speaking Arabic are descended from non-Arabs who were and remain colonised. All long before any European colonising efforts (discounting the Crusader States).
And let's not forget that it was the Muslims who began the practice of trafficking blacks out of East Africa for use as slaves. Look up the Zanj Rebellion for more on that.
Thank you! You didn’t “have” to write this. And I’m sure you will take heat for it in some quarters. But the intelligence, reason, and objective moral clarity you represent is so needed right now. And, by making us feel “seen”, you are also helping to assuage the terrible existential loneliness so many Jews are currently experiencing
I don't disagree with your article, but Jew-hatred is so embedded in the black community now that there is no excising it. The hatred is fanatic, insatiable, and irrevocable.
It began to crystallize with Malcolm X land the 60s "New Left" and the combination of Marxism and Islam has made it endemic.
From Malcolm X to Angela Davis to Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton to Farrakhan to the Squad (heck, the entire Congressional Black Caucus), it seems that their aim for Israel and the Jews is a second Holocaust.
In 1968, when approached by a college student who attacked Zionism, Dr. Martin Luther King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking antisemitism.”
MLK had lots of Jewish friends, many of whom marched shoulder-to-shoulder with him during the Civil Rights protests of the 60's. And, I would imagine that if asked, MLK would have said, " That's right...some of my best friends are Jewish rabbis...what of it? ".
I was born in 1956, in Newark (NJ)...and I'm a white Jew. I can testify that in the 1960's the vast majority of blacks that I encountered were friendly toward Jews, and this was during a time period when blacks were burning down their own neighborhoods in Newark (during the summer of '67). My high school in the early 70's was 50% black...and I never encountered antisemitism. In fact, the first time I came face-to-face with an unabashed antisemite was when it was in my 30's, living in Colorado, not far from the liberal bastion of Aspen, and it shocked me to my core.
Anyone who read, studied and tried to truly understand the heart of MLK, knows what kind of world he envisioned regarding race. The dreams he shared have been unrespectfully stolen and altered to fit a damning contemporary narrative that white people are bad. The sins of our grandfathers will never be forgiven and no credit is due white or Jewish Americans who supported civil rights and equality for all races.
MLK would be moved to tears to see the hateful division evident in our world today. I’m sure these radicals will someday find a way to remove plaques and melt statues that pay homage to his true legacy. What a slap in the face to a brave human being with a loving message.
And he did the stealing. Civil Rights was hijacked as a vehicle for Communist subversion from the git-go. With its' advent and legislation a great deal of Black progress came to a grinding halt. Amost everyone of any note involved was either card carrying or korisne budale. A fare chunk of the rest were FBI or their informants.
The Civil Rights "movement". Though it is difficult to know which came first Civil Rights or its' subversion by Communists and their korisne budale. The "race" issue was certainly something the Organs identified early as the issue they could game to best effect to break America. You don't have to look too deeply to see the "movement" was riddled with subversives, including Parks and MLK Jr.
I still can’t figure out exactly what you are trying to imply here. The FBI secretly recorded, spied on and created a file on MLK full of derogatory unproven information hoping to destroy the momentum of his civil rights movement. Very much like the dirty dossiers they recently used on Trump, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. I know nothing about his personal sex life and find it irrelevant to the file. Seems the dark motives of America’s deep state should be considered when judging the character of our fellow citizens both then and especially now.
It took some real guts for MLK to make his public proclamations that black Americans deserved equality. It took great intellect to create a message with persuasive and trusting language so that his mission remained non-violent. He served as a role model for all races. He was a brave man and certainly no one’s communist stooge.
I don’t know what you are reading, but it isn’t very credible. Try reading some of MLK’s speeches and “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.
First, there was actually some question as to whether King actually said that but even if he did, it just shows him to be the exception that proves the rule as he is largely dismissed today by black activists, some of whom attack him retroactively for having attitudes back then that were acceptable at the time but unacceptable now - namely with regards to women (serial cheater and harasser) and gays (he froze Bayard Rustin out of his movement when Rustin’s sexual orientation became known).
Also note how I point out the 60s as a starting point PRECISELY because this is when Islam and Marxism greatly penetrated the black community.
That anti-Semitic sentiment is far more prevalent among blacks than whites has long been well established; the difference is how the left tries to justify it.
I lived within "ground zero" of the NY-metro Civil Rights movement during the 1960's, where most of America's Jews resided, surrounded by a large black community...and, antisemitism demonstrated by blacks was barely evident. Period. That's changed...today most of the hate crimes perpetrated against Jewish people in New York are done by black men. The roots of this, the reason that young black men are sucker punching Jewish men wearing yarmulkes, isn't rooted in black activism from 55 years ago. I don't care what resource books you're reading from.
The same people (i.e. liberal academics) who question MLK's quote about anti-Zionism equaling antisemitism, are the same one's who are supporting Hamas today. In March of 1968, MLK spoke these words, which aren't questioned in their authenticity, but are true at this very moment..." Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and [I] never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality."
"[T]oday most of the hate crimes perpetrated against Jewish people in New York are done by black men." Thanks for acknowledging, Catskill Mountain Man, what the MSM will not.
"The roots of this, the reason that young black men are sucker punching Jewish men wearing yarmulkes, isn't rooted in black activism from 55 years ago. I don't care what resource books you're reading from."
Whatever's causing contemporary, realtime Jew hatred, whereby synagogues and Jewish cemeteries need full-time guarding, and people who are demonstrably Jewish need to watch where they're seen in public, I do know it isn't new. It's older than Christianity. Sometimes antisemitism is quiescent, as it's been for most of the post-WWII era...and sometimes it erupts like a virus, as was demonstrated in Nazi Germany (then most of Europe) from Kristallnacht [November 9th and 10th, 1938] to the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp [January 27, 1945].
As a Jew, I don't know why I'm hated by a certain part of humanity...I just know that it's real, and it's potentially personally endangering.
Are you saying that there's something inherent in my Jewishness that makes me hatable? Please explain that.
Most people who hate Jews to their core, especially those in North Africa, sub-Sahara Africa, and the Middle East have never met a Jew...because outside of Israel, Jews don't live there! The antisemitism in Europe didn't disappear after WWII, it's just been hibernating.
I detected that anti-semitism when I took my first teaching job in an overwhelming black school in 1980. My impression is that it has grown and intensified since. Dr. King did have many Jewish friends, some of whom were communists. He distanced himself from them when J. Edgar Hoover threatened to expose his extramarital dalliances
Anti-semitism is alive and well within the Black community due to the reach of Black Nationalism. The casual anti-Semitism I hear from friends and family is disheartening. I have had many arguments since October 7th over this topic. It is difficult to get them to even see how racist and anti-semitic they are. So many in my community have been brainwashed to believe they are exempt from being racist and/or anti-Semitic. They believe their Blackness is a shield preventing them from being racist and anti-Semitic because progressives have so thoroughly pushed that idea that we can only be victims of racism, never perpetrators.
Thank you, THANK YOU, Eric R. That so needed to be said. Hughes takes no account of any of the points you mentioned.
By the way, you can add to your list the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 20 years -- Obama, who denied ever once hearing the antisemitic ravings (all recorded for posterity) that passed for preaching in Wright's church. And now Obama is claiming we're ALL "complicit" in Hamas's barbarism. Sickening.
To be fair to Coleman, he is far more enlightened on this than most black pundits, and based on Candace Owens’ latest outburst, this hatred among blacks is not just limited to the left.
He's definitely less ideological than most media-approved black pundits on the left, who far outnumber black pundits (like Owens) on the right. The imbalance is striking. To ignore that is to distort reality.
I read somewhere years back: "You can have your own Opinion, But you cannot have your own Facts". And yet, that's exactly what's happening now. The amount of ignorance on display is breathtaking. Excellent article.
There are facts. There is reality. And then there is the thrill of joining a protest, shouting slogans, singing songs, posting photos and videos all over social media to show how “virtuous, liberal minded, sophisticated” you are. Yay! Look at me everybody! I’m on the side of the righteous, I’m fighting oppression! Sadly... the attraction of the virtue signaling is so much more appealing than facts and reality.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is considered by many to be America’s leading public intellectual on race? His race-baiting has been on display for years, but that's just what the Left wanted to slurp up like momma's cookies. I've thought that Thomas Sowell is America's leading public intellectual on race.
Mr Coleman hits the bullseye again. It is easy to use inflammatory words and statements to rile up the masses especially when the voices of power ( MSM, certain congressmen , academia) do not define the terms ( apartheid comes to mind) or actually analyze the actual facts or justify their conclusions. The black jewish schism is real and is not new . Rather, it is now on full display as the oppressor- oppressed narrative has become the talking point of the left whose objectives are not limited to Israel or Jews. Voices like Mr Hughes and other black writers such as Jason Riley and Wilfred Reilly are critical at this time. It is telling that many( though fewer today than six weeks ago as some have opened their eyes) jews in America are still quick to defend Coates et al while making derogatory comments about Riley, Reilly and their mentor of sorts Thomas Sowell. Bari and company: this is another great debate topic for a panel of black writers from both sides of the aisle. These issues need as much sunshine as possible and those who make their inflammatory comments need to challenged and challenged again and again.
You are correct. I am big fan of both. White Guilt by Shelby Steele had a profound impact on my thinking. I recommend it often. I miss Walter Williams' weekly columns as well. Mr Steele's son Eli is also a great writer.
one parallel that i *do* see between black racism and the situation in Israel is how the sympathy with the victim is wholly dependent on the perpetrator. black people who die at the hands of other black people are like palestinians who suffer at the hands of Arabs. they don't count. it doesn't register on anyone's outrage meter.
black people who die at the hands of white people, and Palestinians who suffer at the hands of Israel are centers of cause celebes, poster people for the existence of oppressing, etc etc. Very sad.
You hit the nail on the head! Over 5 million Congolese have died in the Eastern provinces of the DRC, largely at the hands of other Africans. Tens of thousands have died in the conflict in Ethiopia and the Nigerian military is slaughtering children in their campaign against Boko Haram. Despite the bloodshed and higher death tolls, none of these situations have outraged American progressives and the Black community as much as the current Gaza conflict has.
Mr. Hughes, I appreciate the history and context you provide in this piece, especially with regard to Jews being the indigenous population of the land that comprises modern day Israel - "Whereas Europeans had no claim to belong in the New World, Jews are indigenous to the land and have lived there continuously for millennia." However, when you make reference to Israeli "...policies in the occupied West Bank..." you lose me and any reader versed in the history of the Palestinian Israeli conflict. According to the UN Resolution 242, the land is disputed until an agreement can be reached between the parties. Since, as you have also so accurately pointed out, that "Palestinian leaders have rejected every partition offer they have ever received.." there is still no agreement and, therefore, the often used narrative of Israeli occupied land does not apply. These lands - Judea and Samaria - are part of the Biblical heritage of the indigenous Jewish people. They cut across the center of modern day Israel. They are disputed, not occupied, because the Palestinians don't want peace and never have. They want the biblical lands, just like they want the Temple Mount, so they can destroy any evidence of Jewish life in the land of Israel. Just like they have done on the Temple Mount. Ariel Sharon was wrong to call these lands occupied just because Palestinians claim them as theirs. Israel has just as much, if not more, right to the land than the Arabs who lived there at the time of the partition plan. In fact, the Jews who lived there also were called Palestinian. Rome gave them that name, not any indigenous history. But Israel takes care of their Palestinian Arabs better than any other Arab country ever has and gets only derision for it. Israel cares so much for the "civilian" Palestinian population in Gaza that they are willing to let who knows how many terrorists escape under the guise of humanitarian relief. The additonal war that needs to be fought is the war of words and narratives so that Hamas and all the other Arab Countries, not Israel, get the blame for not taking care of their people.
“On Saturday, after sixteen years of siege, Hamas militants broke out of Gaza. More than 1,300 Israelis were subsequently killed with over one hundred more taken hostage…”
That’s from the letter Coates signed decrying Israel that was sent to The New York Review of Books. His was the first name on the list of signatures.
The letter, written a week after the October 7 massacre, was a litany of Israel’s misdeeds and sins. The closest the signers could come to acknowledging the slaughter, the mass rapes, the mutilations, the killing of babies and the kidnapping of toddlers were the two sentences above. The bit about the “militants” who “broke out.”
Moral failure on this scale probably needs to be remembered.
The reflexive view that the world is made up of oppressors and the oppressed or victims is simply the new norm. If it were up to me and I could do it with the wiggle of my nose i transport these people back in time to when the Romans ruled the place called Israel.....Then they would understand real oppressors and the oppressed.
If it were up to me, the "oppressed" of Park Slope, Berkeley, and the Ivies would have to go to SERE so they could get a little hint of what the word really means.
Presuming you mean Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape; I'm in hearty agreement.
Oh yes
Agree... Short and to the point.. World history is the conqueror and the conquered.. The winner typically took all and loser faced whatever came their way. All the noise in between is just that... Peoples are cruel and some more evil then others. In todays technology driven world culture wars are just like propaganda battles in the past.. and in societies like the US where people have way too much discretionary time they fill it with BS that supports their selfish motivations.
Yes, exactly. Because that’s how Rome operated. It conquered anyone and everything, and you either became a Roman or you were murdered. In Judaism we honor and remember when we became a displaced people from Roman occupation in Israel to this day (among other tragedies), known as Tisha B’Av.
Christendom's past contains comparable barbarity. Probably few cultures don't - the Biblical Jews included. At one point, Islamic societies were the exemplars of civilization. Now, generally speaking, Christians are far better, Muslims far worse, and Jews continue to survive despite centuries of attempts to wipe them out.
Feeding Christians to lions comes to mind.
I really thought more of Coates. One of his reasons for deciding Israel practices apartheid is that PA residents have different license plates. Of course the do. They live under a different government. Arab Israelis have Israeli plates, Arab Palestinians have PA plates. I mean I third grader could understand this. He points out the separate PA roads. Ok. Again an Arab citizen if Israel can use the Israeli road while non citizens can’t. Simply not apartheid, which is separation by race or ethnicity. That doesn’t exist.
Third grade intellectual deduction would be welcomed. Is Coates an idiot or a type of evil liar by omission of facts that then would prove him an idiot?
Really rather stupid or evil. Those are the choices.
There’s an old saying, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That’s what is going on here. Seeing things through a singular lens.
If you've ever read any of Coates' writings you would understand him as simultaneously both. And an awful writer at that. It's a struggle to just get through.
Thank you, BradK. I was beginning to wonder if I had entered the fifth dimension… Are these commenters familiar with Coates work? Because his statement aligns very well with his weltanshauung and prior works. I see no inconsistency at all.
Brad, Coates is not just a struggle to read, he's a struggle to listen to.
All I can think of is that he was uncritically accepting whatever he was being told by evil liars -- so hard to think of him as an idiot but being uncritical is pretty idiotic. It really drives me crazy when people say "they have Jewish roads and Arab roads -- that apartheid!" Well it would be if that was true but it freaking isn't, never has been and never will be.
There's a third, which I plumb for: stupid AND evil. ;-)
Exactly. They aren’t antonyms.
This Quillette article should be enlightening as to his mindset.
Howard Men
Prince Jones, Carlton Jones, and the evasions of Ta-Nehisi Coates.
https://quillette.com/2023/10/03/howard-men/
It certainly changed my opinion of him, plus it’s a fascinating read.
Thanks, this was very instructive. I was quite moved when I read "Between The World and Me" in 2015...it made a lasting impression on me.
Nothing surprises me anymore.
Absolutely. I used to read him on Salon in the late 2000s-early 2010s before they went full identity politics and then developed TDS and found him thought provoking, however I always suspected that he was somewhat willfully blind and unable to see outside of his dogma. That Quillette article unfortunately seems to verify my suspicions. To my disappointment he now strikes me as a self righteous bigot. He has become what he has always claimed to hate.
He could be both
I think Dilbert once said that in a different context.
Coates is a race baitor, never thought anything good of him.
"I really thought more of Coates..."
That was your first mistake.
I am curious Ron, why would you have thought more of Coates?
Note the passive-voice characterization of mass murder as something that just happened, like it was inevitable. The "oppressed" have no agency, responsibility, or guilt.
"Ta-Nehisi Coates, considered by many to be America’s leading public intellectual on race"
Certainly not by anyone outside the gilded ivory towers of out-of-touch academia. He is an embittered and bloodthirsty racist, whose meandering diatribes wander the realms of the imagination seeking corroboration how the White Devils are the plague of the human race and are singularly responsible for the sufferings of mankind since being cast out of garden of Eden.
The only people who embrace his hateful spew are the White Guilt brigade so they have something to discuss over $7 lattes at the Starbucks. No less a fraud and race huckster than Henry Rogers. MLK would be appalled.
Agree re Coates, and his leftist elite groupies. For the benefit of those groupies, I add a clarification of your reference to Henry Rogers: "a/k/a Ibram X Kendi."
All this is true.
Yes.
I’m not surprised that Coates is on the opposite side of Hughes and rationality now. He was physically and literally on the opposite side of Hughes during summer 2019 when arguing for and against reparations in Congress.
“What’s more, it is not the European Jews but the Mizrahi Jews—who are difficult to visually distinguish from Palestinians—that form most of the voting base of the right-wing parties that Israel’s critics consider to be the truly racist ones.”
Fascinating. Another example of something I’ve learned in the FP & would rarely see anywhere else - because it doesn’t “fit the narrative”.
He is absolutely correct in that. The Mizrahi Jews who were expelled from Arab and Muslim countries mostly favor the right. In terms of their looks, these are brown and black Jews.
The leftist narrative is absurd.
For those who haven't done so yet, I recommend going back to Hughes' article and click every link. There's a wealth of context and information on those pages.
To that add the Sephardim and you'll find the Ashkenazi to be not so prevalent. The leftis simply following their divisive protocol. They need to create victimhood in order to divide and then conquer.
Eastern European Jews are only 30 percent of Israelis.
Many (I have no idea what % but a visible amount over the years) of Ashkenazi have left and are the Israelis one encounters here in the US. Maybe this contributed to the rightward lurch. The tumult over the judicial reforms also had secular Ashkenazi scrambling for European citizenships to leave a country that was no longer “theirs”.
If you ask my Mother you'll be informed that Ashkenazim aren't REALLY Jews. She also takes a dim view of the Mizrahi. Occasionally I enjoy sharing my belief that the Ashkenazi are most likelythe apogee of the human intellect.
Yeah. Great fun from that point.
Just goes to show that we are not a monolith by any means
A visit to the clubhouse at Century Village will immediately dispell any notion thereof.
Selection has to have something to work with, in this case I think it is The Book. If there is anything to it, the Jewish emphasis on literacy and commentary would probably do it. Similar might be said of the Chinese; with the Confucian emphasis on public examination to get on in their world.
Also the less intelligent tend to get killed off at a higher rate which obviously kept them from reproducing at the same levels as the ones that saw it coming and escaped.
I agree
There was a genetic bottleneck around 800-1000 AD. The pogroms or equivalents had reduced the population to about 5-800 Jews. We’re all at most 4-5 cousins apparently.
LoL. My Mom would not contradict you.
Just like all the ex-Soviet Bloc folk who comment here in vehement opposition to all Leftist crap have experienced Communism up close and personal: the Mizrahi have experienced Muslim hate up close and personal.
The people who most dislike Trudeau here in Alberta are the ones who escaped here from Cuba and Venezuela
Here’s an interesting fact:
“… in the year 1890, there were 53,800 Jews in the vilayet of Baghdad, of whom 52,500 lived in Baghdad…”
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Baghdad#In_the_nineteenth_century
Honestly I’m surprised this hasn’t been edited by some woke zealot wikieditor.
Bravo Coleman! People throw the word brilliant around, but in this case that adjective doesn’t do your piece justice. Thoughtful, insightful, and full of facts that the legacy media doesn’t deem worthy to
print since it doesn’t fit their agenda. Keep writing and shining a clear light on what needs to be said. In a world where facts and history take a back seat to overwrought opinions and misguided theories, we need your calm common sense approach to debunk the nonsense. I can’t wait until your book comes out.
Couldn’t agree more. This is truly a brilliant and informative essay. Well done, Coleman, and thank you!
Completely in agreement. A great piece of writing. It's why I subscribe to FP.
I agree with you fully. I wish the legacy media would interview Coleman Hughes instead of the likes of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Marc Lamont Hill.
The book Israelophobia by Jake Wallis Simons goes into great detail about these claims and where they originate from. Ch 4 --Falsification. Many of these claims date back to the SIG or Sionistskiya Gosudarstva The man who initially headed the project was Yuri Andropov, ironically someone who hid his Jewish heritage. The aim was to create a rabid and demented hatred of American Zionism. The Apartheid smear first got big play in the pamphlet 'Zionism and Aparthied' which is a reworking of Yevgeny Yevseyev's Fascism Under the Blue Star. Yevseyeyev was prolific Zionologist as the Kremlin disinformation specialists were called.
It is interesting that the falsehoods persist to this day and are so readily swallowed by the Far Left. If you have not read the book, it is very interesting and does help to explain the far Left's obsession with Israel and indeed Jews.
There was also a split in the Black civil rights movement between MLK jr who supported Israel and the Nation of Islam adherents like Farrkhan who were opposed. Farrakhan is of course a known anti-Semite. Angela Davis was further radicalised in the PLO camps. Because the Soviet influence, it was a popular far Left cause and seen as a way to destabilize the west.
Hughes did speak about the Mizrahi Jews who were expelled from Middle Eastern countries starting in 1950 and who make up slightly more than half of the Israeli Jewish population. Out of the entire Jewish population in Yemen one remains. Before WW2, there were 70k. There are 100 Yemeni Jews living in the US and 400k living in Israel. (One could suggest that Arab leaders in forcibly expelling their Jewish population ended up putting more population pressure on Israel and indeed the area). When one speaks of ethnic cleansing, compare and contrast the Jewish population in countries like Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq etc pre 1950 to what it is in 1960 and indeed today. Note they did not take Palestinian refugees in return either.
And when we are speaking of the Jewish refugees from Europe, it is worth remembering that a number were still sheltering in former concentrations camps like Dachau (a place where Patton vomited) back in the early 1950s. I know this because my grandfather was a serving US Naval officer at the time and posted to Frankfurt. My grandmother who disliked being bored, helped with the refugee camps including getting people resettled in Israel. She also kept a scrapbook. One of the pages deals with Dachau. How long should the world have kept them in the former concentration camps? They were unable to return home for various reasons.
Where are the descendants of the refugees supposed to go? Israel has provided an answer for thousands who had nowhere else to go. Who still have nowhere else to go.
Thank you, Michelle! Insightful as always, and I enjoyed reading about your personal connection to the issue through your family history. I would add that to the various reasons these Jews were unable to return home was that in countries like Poland and Ukraine, when they tried to return home, many were slaughtered by their former neighbors, who had looted, ransacked and moved into their homes. “Go back to Poland”?? I don’t think so.
I will try and remember to take a photo of the relevant page in the scrapbook for you Chana (and post tomorrow on my weekly round up). I thought it so interesting and so very heart-breaking. Living in a former charnel house even with the black wreaths on the ovens, the gates open and good food is not a fate I would wish on anyone.
And people don't really want to speak about what was going on in Poland, Ukraine, Hungary etc as the Iron Curtain descended. Or indeed how long it took for the refugee problem to get sorted after the German surrender.
I look forward to seeing that. So very important to preserve this history as more and more people try to deny it (as Eisenhower foresaw).
It's hard to wrap my head around the sort of trauma the survivors lived with daily, with no counseling or emotional support. I can think of five local families off the top of my head who came here with nothing but memories of murder and misery, who built fortunes, and give hundreds of thousands of dollars in philanthropy every year. (Compare to the now-mandatory safe spaces on campus and literal screams of outrage if someone dares to disagree with their uninformed opinions, while clutching their lattes and laptops.)
We have grown at least two generations of unconscionable wimps. It’s not good for our society, and honestly, it’s not good for them either.
Yes to all of this! Just a note to add that pogroms against Jews in the Middle East began well before the creation of Israel. There was a Jewish community in GAZA slaughtered by their Arab neighbors in 1929.
Coates' clumsy attempt at the analogy between the Jim Crow South and the Israel/Palestine conflict shows how shallow his argumentation is. It's as if he hasn't bothered to learn history outside of the North American subcontinent - and is thus incapable of seeing the world through a different lens. Imagine thinking the world and all its problems are just that simple. It's quite facile honestly. Perhaps he is better suited for comic books than journalism, public conversation, or writing about civil rights.
Coates is a leftist idiot who spews racist, race-baiting, Jew-hating cliches that our leftist elites pretend are insightful. This is their way of pandering to the black left.
People who make Coates type of arguments tend to find a convenient point in history and stop looking further.
Perhaps Coates should communicate via graphic novels! That seems to be the level of intellectual discourse that he is serving up.
Hey, my kids would disagree--he isn’t even worthy of that medium!
The need for the LoL like feature shows itself yet again.
They did have him contribute to some Marvel comics. He said he modeled the villain after the truly evil and horrifying Jordan Peterson.
🤣
Fantastic piece. I love Coleman’s work whether podcast or writing. He’s one of our brightest stars in the current culture wars. Brilliant. We need him. And yes: Young people today just simply don’t think. Critical and independent thinking is long gone, replaced by dumb tribal warfare and TikTok. It’s pretty damn pathetic. I wish they cared about facts, history, debate, knowledge, but they simply don’t. That time is over. We’re in Orwell Land now. It happened, people.
Michael Mohr
Sincere American Writing
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
“It happened” because there was a decades-long ideological revolution in the universities, specifically the education departments that trained future teachers in critical theory. Thus began the substitution of logic and respect for objectivity with identity politics, intersectionality and the privileging of feelings over facts, all bundled together with Marxism.
These young people you wish cared about “facts, history, debate and knowledge” didn’t stand a chance. They have no idea what you’re talking about, except to say that you are obviously some brand of oppressor whose racist worldview needs to be dismantled.
It is interesting how those who decry colonization actually colonize conflicts around the world. It's not just a simplistic view to say everything is about skin color, its ignorant and insulting. Peoples, nations, ethnicities have their own histories having nothing to do with America's racial issues.
These "decolonizers," with their Western-centric view of global controversies, ignore the actual underlying issues that stoke much of the world's active conflicts. In effect, these decolonizers dehumanize those who are enmeshed in ongoing internecine tragedies by making everything about the color of a person's skin.
Yeah. And many “victims” in America (especially elites) are upset that anyone is disagreeing with them about Israel/ Palestine. A stanford physician who is a minority is talking about how unfair the world is and that the Palestinians are slaughtered bc they are brown/ Muslim etc-. like raging posts. Another physician (minority) is posting all the colonialism/ genocide- feel what it is to be brown stuff on social media. I say nothing but I’m just shocked. They have been taught stupid concepts and they’ve been taught to think with emotion and not logic. Smart people are appearing so dumb these days.
There is a huge difference between book learning and the ability to think critically and employ common sense. Some of the stupidest people have a myriad of degrees next to their name.
I know. I worked with these people
Me too!
Me three. I'm appalled by absence of critical thinking that was formerly taught in the public schools and reinforced at home.
A lot of the brightest believe the silliest and stupidest things. Lorenzo Wareby documents this phenomenon to exhaustion over at his Substack, 'Lorenzo from Oz', and cross posted to Helen Dale's, Not On Your Team, But Always Fair' .
It is said that “ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Way too many good people have been cowed into silence by shrieking “progressive” harpies. Consider taking a stand, as there are many more who agree with you than with those minority physicians you mentioned.
I do try. I definitely never have been the one to just parrot talking points because it’s cool. I always counter with my own knowledge after dissecting these different situations...and it often doesn’t score points... but I don’t care- bc to me the situation is too grave to not at least try to plant some seeds of doubt in their religious beliefs.
Ah. You said, “ I say nothing but I’m just shocked,” and I took that to mean you don’t reply to them.
I meant I won’t reply on social media. Pointless. Just a rage fest. Rather have in person debate :)
To which you can add now the good men and women actually doing, and going to bat for, evil.
Dont forget, university-educated men were overrepresented in the Nazi party. Coincidence?
From the North African Atlantic coast to the Takla Makan Desert in China, from Aden to the Caucasus remains land colonised by Muslim Arabs between c. 625-750AD. Later colonisation by Muslim Turks extends to Kazan 400 miles due east of Moscow and to Bengal and the Karnatic in India . 90% of it remains colonised to this day and 95% of those speaking Arabic are descended from non-Arabs who were and remain colonised. All long before any European colonising efforts (discounting the Crusader States).
Exactly. Indonesia isn’t exactly indigenously Muslim.
Indeed, they were prolific colonizers. And not gentle about it either.
And let's not forget that it was the Muslims who began the practice of trafficking blacks out of East Africa for use as slaves. Look up the Zanj Rebellion for more on that.
Thanks for this excellent article. If only the MSM could actually INFORM people of the truth instead of merely confirming the Hamas propaganda machine
Why would they? Did Josef Goebbels ever defy Adolf?
The MSM is the last place any sane person would go to for the truth.
Thank you! You didn’t “have” to write this. And I’m sure you will take heat for it in some quarters. But the intelligence, reason, and objective moral clarity you represent is so needed right now. And, by making us feel “seen”, you are also helping to assuage the terrible existential loneliness so many Jews are currently experiencing
Mr. Hughes,
I don't disagree with your article, but Jew-hatred is so embedded in the black community now that there is no excising it. The hatred is fanatic, insatiable, and irrevocable.
It began to crystallize with Malcolm X land the 60s "New Left" and the combination of Marxism and Islam has made it endemic.
From Malcolm X to Angela Davis to Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton to Farrakhan to the Squad (heck, the entire Congressional Black Caucus), it seems that their aim for Israel and the Jews is a second Holocaust.
In 1968, when approached by a college student who attacked Zionism, Dr. Martin Luther King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking antisemitism.”
MLK had lots of Jewish friends, many of whom marched shoulder-to-shoulder with him during the Civil Rights protests of the 60's. And, I would imagine that if asked, MLK would have said, " That's right...some of my best friends are Jewish rabbis...what of it? ".
I was born in 1956, in Newark (NJ)...and I'm a white Jew. I can testify that in the 1960's the vast majority of blacks that I encountered were friendly toward Jews, and this was during a time period when blacks were burning down their own neighborhoods in Newark (during the summer of '67). My high school in the early 70's was 50% black...and I never encountered antisemitism. In fact, the first time I came face-to-face with an unabashed antisemite was when it was in my 30's, living in Colorado, not far from the liberal bastion of Aspen, and it shocked me to my core.
Anyone who read, studied and tried to truly understand the heart of MLK, knows what kind of world he envisioned regarding race. The dreams he shared have been unrespectfully stolen and altered to fit a damning contemporary narrative that white people are bad. The sins of our grandfathers will never be forgiven and no credit is due white or Jewish Americans who supported civil rights and equality for all races.
MLK would be moved to tears to see the hateful division evident in our world today. I’m sure these radicals will someday find a way to remove plaques and melt statues that pay homage to his true legacy. What a slap in the face to a brave human being with a loving message.
I agree with you 100 percent.
And he did the stealing. Civil Rights was hijacked as a vehicle for Communist subversion from the git-go. With its' advent and legislation a great deal of Black progress came to a grinding halt. Amost everyone of any note involved was either card carrying or korisne budale. A fare chunk of the rest were FBI or their informants.
What are you trying to say here? Your statement is unclear. MLK stole what exactly?
The Civil Rights "movement". Though it is difficult to know which came first Civil Rights or its' subversion by Communists and their korisne budale. The "race" issue was certainly something the Organs identified early as the issue they could game to best effect to break America. You don't have to look too deeply to see the "movement" was riddled with subversives, including Parks and MLK Jr.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I still can’t figure out exactly what you are trying to imply here. The FBI secretly recorded, spied on and created a file on MLK full of derogatory unproven information hoping to destroy the momentum of his civil rights movement. Very much like the dirty dossiers they recently used on Trump, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. I know nothing about his personal sex life and find it irrelevant to the file. Seems the dark motives of America’s deep state should be considered when judging the character of our fellow citizens both then and especially now.
It took some real guts for MLK to make his public proclamations that black Americans deserved equality. It took great intellect to create a message with persuasive and trusting language so that his mission remained non-violent. He served as a role model for all races. He was a brave man and certainly no one’s communist stooge.
I don’t know what you are reading, but it isn’t very credible. Try reading some of MLK’s speeches and “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.
First, there was actually some question as to whether King actually said that but even if he did, it just shows him to be the exception that proves the rule as he is largely dismissed today by black activists, some of whom attack him retroactively for having attitudes back then that were acceptable at the time but unacceptable now - namely with regards to women (serial cheater and harasser) and gays (he froze Bayard Rustin out of his movement when Rustin’s sexual orientation became known).
Also note how I point out the 60s as a starting point PRECISELY because this is when Islam and Marxism greatly penetrated the black community.
That anti-Semitic sentiment is far more prevalent among blacks than whites has long been well established; the difference is how the left tries to justify it.
I lived within "ground zero" of the NY-metro Civil Rights movement during the 1960's, where most of America's Jews resided, surrounded by a large black community...and, antisemitism demonstrated by blacks was barely evident. Period. That's changed...today most of the hate crimes perpetrated against Jewish people in New York are done by black men. The roots of this, the reason that young black men are sucker punching Jewish men wearing yarmulkes, isn't rooted in black activism from 55 years ago. I don't care what resource books you're reading from.
The same people (i.e. liberal academics) who question MLK's quote about anti-Zionism equaling antisemitism, are the same one's who are supporting Hamas today. In March of 1968, MLK spoke these words, which aren't questioned in their authenticity, but are true at this very moment..." Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and [I] never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality."
"[T]oday most of the hate crimes perpetrated against Jewish people in New York are done by black men." Thanks for acknowledging, Catskill Mountain Man, what the MSM will not.
"The roots of this, the reason that young black men are sucker punching Jewish men wearing yarmulkes, isn't rooted in black activism from 55 years ago. I don't care what resource books you're reading from."
Okaaay - then what IS causing it?
Whatever's causing contemporary, realtime Jew hatred, whereby synagogues and Jewish cemeteries need full-time guarding, and people who are demonstrably Jewish need to watch where they're seen in public, I do know it isn't new. It's older than Christianity. Sometimes antisemitism is quiescent, as it's been for most of the post-WWII era...and sometimes it erupts like a virus, as was demonstrated in Nazi Germany (then most of Europe) from Kristallnacht [November 9th and 10th, 1938] to the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp [January 27, 1945].
As a Jew, I don't know why I'm hated by a certain part of humanity...I just know that it's real, and it's potentially personally endangering.
You should have omitted the word 'potentially.'
You should know this. Actually you do know. This is something you know.
Are you saying that there's something inherent in my Jewishness that makes me hatable? Please explain that.
Most people who hate Jews to their core, especially those in North Africa, sub-Sahara Africa, and the Middle East have never met a Jew...because outside of Israel, Jews don't live there! The antisemitism in Europe didn't disappear after WWII, it's just been hibernating.
I detected that anti-semitism when I took my first teaching job in an overwhelming black school in 1980. My impression is that it has grown and intensified since. Dr. King did have many Jewish friends, some of whom were communists. He distanced himself from them when J. Edgar Hoover threatened to expose his extramarital dalliances
Anti-semitism is alive and well within the Black community due to the reach of Black Nationalism. The casual anti-Semitism I hear from friends and family is disheartening. I have had many arguments since October 7th over this topic. It is difficult to get them to even see how racist and anti-semitic they are. So many in my community have been brainwashed to believe they are exempt from being racist and/or anti-Semitic. They believe their Blackness is a shield preventing them from being racist and anti-Semitic because progressives have so thoroughly pushed that idea that we can only be victims of racism, never perpetrators.
We are living in a VERY, VERY different world now, and we cannot feasibly compare today’s black leaders with MLK. Day versus night.
Look up Stanley Levison.
Thank you, THANK YOU, Eric R. That so needed to be said. Hughes takes no account of any of the points you mentioned.
By the way, you can add to your list the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 20 years -- Obama, who denied ever once hearing the antisemitic ravings (all recorded for posterity) that passed for preaching in Wright's church. And now Obama is claiming we're ALL "complicit" in Hamas's barbarism. Sickening.
To be fair to Coleman, he is far more enlightened on this than most black pundits, and based on Candace Owens’ latest outburst, this hatred among blacks is not just limited to the left.
He's definitely less ideological than most media-approved black pundits on the left, who far outnumber black pundits (like Owens) on the right. The imbalance is striking. To ignore that is to distort reality.
I read somewhere years back: "You can have your own Opinion, But you cannot have your own Facts". And yet, that's exactly what's happening now. The amount of ignorance on display is breathtaking. Excellent article.
There are facts. There is reality. And then there is the thrill of joining a protest, shouting slogans, singing songs, posting photos and videos all over social media to show how “virtuous, liberal minded, sophisticated” you are. Yay! Look at me everybody! I’m on the side of the righteous, I’m fighting oppression! Sadly... the attraction of the virtue signaling is so much more appealing than facts and reality.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is considered by many to be America’s leading public intellectual on race? His race-baiting has been on display for years, but that's just what the Left wanted to slurp up like momma's cookies. I've thought that Thomas Sowell is America's leading public intellectual on race.
Mr Coleman hits the bullseye again. It is easy to use inflammatory words and statements to rile up the masses especially when the voices of power ( MSM, certain congressmen , academia) do not define the terms ( apartheid comes to mind) or actually analyze the actual facts or justify their conclusions. The black jewish schism is real and is not new . Rather, it is now on full display as the oppressor- oppressed narrative has become the talking point of the left whose objectives are not limited to Israel or Jews. Voices like Mr Hughes and other black writers such as Jason Riley and Wilfred Reilly are critical at this time. It is telling that many( though fewer today than six weeks ago as some have opened their eyes) jews in America are still quick to defend Coates et al while making derogatory comments about Riley, Reilly and their mentor of sorts Thomas Sowell. Bari and company: this is another great debate topic for a panel of black writers from both sides of the aisle. These issues need as much sunshine as possible and those who make their inflammatory comments need to challenged and challenged again and again.
Great post, Michael Frankel. I suggest you add Walter Williams and Shelby Steele to your list of truly profound, insightful black writers.
You are correct. I am big fan of both. White Guilt by Shelby Steele had a profound impact on my thinking. I recommend it often. I miss Walter Williams' weekly columns as well. Mr Steele's son Eli is also a great writer.
one parallel that i *do* see between black racism and the situation in Israel is how the sympathy with the victim is wholly dependent on the perpetrator. black people who die at the hands of other black people are like palestinians who suffer at the hands of Arabs. they don't count. it doesn't register on anyone's outrage meter.
black people who die at the hands of white people, and Palestinians who suffer at the hands of Israel are centers of cause celebes, poster people for the existence of oppressing, etc etc. Very sad.
You hit the nail on the head! Over 5 million Congolese have died in the Eastern provinces of the DRC, largely at the hands of other Africans. Tens of thousands have died in the conflict in Ethiopia and the Nigerian military is slaughtering children in their campaign against Boko Haram. Despite the bloodshed and higher death tolls, none of these situations have outraged American progressives and the Black community as much as the current Gaza conflict has.
Mr. Hughes, I appreciate the history and context you provide in this piece, especially with regard to Jews being the indigenous population of the land that comprises modern day Israel - "Whereas Europeans had no claim to belong in the New World, Jews are indigenous to the land and have lived there continuously for millennia." However, when you make reference to Israeli "...policies in the occupied West Bank..." you lose me and any reader versed in the history of the Palestinian Israeli conflict. According to the UN Resolution 242, the land is disputed until an agreement can be reached between the parties. Since, as you have also so accurately pointed out, that "Palestinian leaders have rejected every partition offer they have ever received.." there is still no agreement and, therefore, the often used narrative of Israeli occupied land does not apply. These lands - Judea and Samaria - are part of the Biblical heritage of the indigenous Jewish people. They cut across the center of modern day Israel. They are disputed, not occupied, because the Palestinians don't want peace and never have. They want the biblical lands, just like they want the Temple Mount, so they can destroy any evidence of Jewish life in the land of Israel. Just like they have done on the Temple Mount. Ariel Sharon was wrong to call these lands occupied just because Palestinians claim them as theirs. Israel has just as much, if not more, right to the land than the Arabs who lived there at the time of the partition plan. In fact, the Jews who lived there also were called Palestinian. Rome gave them that name, not any indigenous history. But Israel takes care of their Palestinian Arabs better than any other Arab country ever has and gets only derision for it. Israel cares so much for the "civilian" Palestinian population in Gaza that they are willing to let who knows how many terrorists escape under the guise of humanitarian relief. The additonal war that needs to be fought is the war of words and narratives so that Hamas and all the other Arab Countries, not Israel, get the blame for not taking care of their people.