OPINION:
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest unconscionable act of antisemitism, so we are told by our trusted media, was tweeting “Joe Biden is Hitler. #NaziJoe has to go” after Mr. Biden’s infamous “Red Speech” attacking “MAGA Republicans.”
Apparently, criticizing Mr. Biden, who is not Jewish, is anti-Jewish. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom The Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” explained that Mrs. Greene’s tweet was antisemitic because it “denigrates the Holocaust and constitutes a form of Holocaust denial.” Democrat Representative Brad Schneider, who is Jewish, drafted a resolution to censure Mrs. Greene calling on his colleagues to join in condemning her, “rather than amplify hate, bigotry, and racism.”
In other words, Mrs. Greene is a Nazi for calling Biden a Nazi, and if you fail to condemn her, you’re a Nazi too. It goes without saying that the rule obviously doesn’t apply to #OrangeHitler, because former President Donald Trump is actually a Nazi. Calling him Hitler is not antisemitism – it’s a mitzvah.
The staggering hypocrisy reveals that Mr. Schneider and those attacking Mrs. Greene don’t actually believe her to be an antisemite – they just want to paint her as one. As one of the most outspoken critics of the Democrat/Republican uni-party, Mrs. Greene has already been falsely slandered as an antisemite. These new attacks are a warning to others – support Marjorie Taylor Greene, or fail to condemn her, and we will come after you too. These pearl clutchers don’t care about Jews or the Holocaust. They call anyone who opposes them a Nazi. Oppose the murder of millions of unborn children? – NAZI! Oppose chemical castration of minors? – NAZI! Refuse to wear a mask? - NAZI! It is they who denigrate the Holocaust by cynically using it as a cudgel to silence opposition.
It is unsurprising that Mr. Schneider, a cynical politician, would exploit his Jewish heritage to slander, Mrs. Greene. But it is surprising that Rabbi Boteach would join the mob. Just like Mrs. Greene, in the past Rabbi Boteach invoked the Holocaust to criticize the Obama administration’s blindness to the Iranian threat – and he was roundly criticized by the same people who are now criticizing Mrs. Greene.
Outraged groups, including AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, and the Anti-defamation league, called Rabbi Boteach “revolting,” “outrageous,” “perverse,” and “way over the top.” The head of the ADL said Rabbi Boteach’s statement “trivializes the horrific nature of the genocide and the memory of its victims.” But in the past, Rabbi Boteach, like Mrs. Greene, bravely ignored his critics because he recognized a genocidal threat and courageously called it by its name.
What Rabbi Boteach once understood but has since forgotten is that holocausts don’t begin with death camps – they end with them. The road to Auschwitz was paved with government tyranny like the Reichstag fire, boundless “emergency” powers, gun confiscation, reckless government spending causing hyperinflation, the politicization of science and medicine, and government propaganda demonizing political opponents. To honor the Holocaust is to recognize the first sprouts of government tyranny and to sound the alarm before it’s too late.
The signs of tyranny were already present leading up to Mr. Biden’s Red Speech. As Daniel Horowitz and Steve Deace argue in their upcoming book The Rise of the Fourth Reich, the “great reset” set in motion since March of 2020 is “the worst oppression in global history since the Third Reich.” Those in power are in possession of resources and technological capabilities that the Nazis and the KGB could only dream of. The government has used one “emergency” after another to expand its power and is spending us into inflation making basic necessities unaffordable.
The government destroyed small businesses with lockdowns while allowing mega-corporations to operate and thrive. For months, the government allowed and encouraged “peaceful protestors” to burn cities and destroy businesses, and then expected us to believe that a four-hour riot at the most heavily fortified building in the country was the most horrific event in American history. The government working with media and big tech silences voices of opposition while amplifying government propaganda, like the Red Speech, demonizing millions of Americans. This all laid the groundwork for the politicization of law enforcement, culminating with the raid on the home of the president’s chief political rival, and the arrest of peaceful dissidents – most recently 87-year-old concentration camp survivor Eva Edl who was arrested by the FBI for organizing an antiabortion protest.
Do these events suggest that we are in a holocaust? Of course not. Are they troubling? Of course. If Mr. Schneider was sincerely concerned about the memory of the Holocaust, instead of censuring Mrs. Greene, he would debate her on the merits and defend his policies.
But those who cannot debate defame, so the Jewish politician cries antisemitism. As usual, politicians like Mr. Schneider are accusing others of what they themselves are guilty of. By calling Mrs. Greene an antisemite for effectively drawing attention to tyranny, he denigrates the memory of the Holocaust.
In the words of Vera Sherav, “As a Holocaust survivor, I am appalled by poseurs who control the Holocaust narrative. They deny the relevance of the Holocaust to current discrimination and increasingly aggressive and repressive edicts. These vigilantes censor and silence those who speak out. By denying the relevance of the Holocaust to current repression, the vigilantes are Holocaust deniers.”
- The author is a Rabbi and First Amendment attorney.
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