Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels purportedly said, "Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty," a principle the Democrat Left puts into practice with unfounded accusations that Donald Trump supports racism, white nationalism, and anti-Semitism. The anti-Israel organization If Americans Knew praised Democrat front-runner Elizabeth Warren by stating, "She said 'yes' to pressuring Israel to end the occupation. Keep saying yes, and add some teeth to it." The same web page adds, "Israel has been a 'foreign policy problem' for years, but also -- especially recently -- it has become a diplomatic albatross around America’s neck." The political Left, rather than Donald Trump, has a problem with our fellow democracy Israel to the extent of excusing, ignoring, and whitewashing behavior similar to that of which they accuse Trump: Palestinian discrimination against and even physical abuse of women, religious minorities, and LGBT people.

It is past time for Jewish voters to wake up to the unpleasant fact that they are the moral equivalent of the Democratic Party's battered spouse, the voter whose support the party takes for granted regardless of its embrace of controversial figures like Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. Here is what actor David Clennon has to say about a cultural boycott of Israel, and on the same web page where Truthout declares, "We need your help to put an end to the destruction and abuse of the Trump administration -- before it's too late."

Clennon complains, "A successful Hollywood producer is threatening to initiate a new blacklist against one somewhat successful but slightly washed-up actor: me." The context of the producer's statement was Clennon's refusal to audition for a Netflix series because it is "…a joint project of U.S. and Israeli television companies." Clennon then adds quite plainly, "Since the Israeli massacre of 2,200 residents of Gaza in 2014, I have supported the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel under the larger umbrella of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement."

Clennon also characterizes Israel's Operation Protective Edge as a "massacre of 2200 residents of Gaza" while omitting its context. Israel did nothing to Gaza until the terrorist organization Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers (an act of war) and fired rockets at Israel (another act of war). It is to be remembered that, when the Nazis bombed English cities, and then fired cruise and ballistic missiles at English cities, the Royal Air Force turned Hamburg and Dresden into crematoria and would have probably dropped a nuclear bomb on Berlin had the war continued into August 1945.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris explained what should have been obvious: "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now, they are going to reap the whirlwind." Some people denounced Harris as a butcher and a war criminal, but his superiors including Prime Minister Churchill and/or Parliament could have ordered him to stop area bombing. They didn't, and Churchill was apparently comfortable with the idea of nuking Berlin. Britons who had but minutes -- and some Israelis have only 15 seconds -- to get into bomb shelters before Nazi missiles arrived probably agreed with area bombing of German cities. Royal Air Force personnel even wrote personalized messages for Hitler on their bombs before they dropped them. If Israel were to put Harris' methods (minus, however, attacks on genuine civilian targets) into practice, Hamas' incendiary balloons and rockets would stop within days.

Accusing the Other Side of That Which Yours is Guilty: Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide

Clennon therefore seems inclined, like the United Nations and Jewish Voice for Peace, to overlook almost everything Hamas does to evoke Israel's well-justified countermeasures that exhibit excessive restraint to the extent of putting innocent people's lives at risk. He then adds, "A state founded upon multiple acts of violent ethnic cleansing and maintained by a system of racial apartheid stands as a moral contradiction to centuries of Jewish theological reflection and ethical reasoning."

This again implements Goebbels' (purported) advice to accuse the other side of that which your own side is guilty. Israel's Arab enemies were the ones who, in and after 1948, proposed to ethnically cleanse the region by throwing all the Jews into the sea. The 1967 and 1973 wars were more of the same, with then-"outhouse countries" (I am using the family-friendly version of the word Donald Trump uses) Egypt and Syria putting the world at risk of nuclear war.

Here are members of the Students for Justice in Palestine chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" which is yet another call for ethnic cleansing if not actual genocide of Jews. Israel -- the entire country, not just the disputed areas -- is between the river and the sea. The top of the Hamas logo displays a Judenrein map of Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace's rabbinical council supports Students for Justice in Palestine.

Apartheid is meanwhile what Israel's enemies, including Clennon's poor oppressed Gazans, do. People of all religions are welcome in Israel just as they are in the United States. Women and Arabs can be members of the Knesset, and Tel Aviv has gay pride events. Hamas discriminates against Christians, Jews, and those it deems to be the wrong kinds of Muslims. LGBT people are in danger of not just discrimination, but outright violence, in Gaza while women are still subject to socially-acceptable domestic violence and honor killing.

Draw the Line at Redhenning

If we unfriended and Redhenned everybody with whom we disagree politically (a practice advocated by Democrat Maxine Waters), we would soon have few friends and fewer customers and suppliers. I would not boycott Red Hen if its owner, for example, supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Bernie Sanders today. I will however never patronize them because they refused to serve somebody because of her employment in the Trump Administration. My opinion would be the same of a business that refused to serve somebody for being employed by the Obama Administration. 

Clennon similarly did not merely express an opinion with which others disagree, he Redhenned a project because an Israeli company was involved. The bottom line is however that unjust disparagement of Israel, and support for a cultural boycott of Israel, appears on a web page that says "We need your help to put an end to the destruction and abuse of the Trump administration -- before it's too late." The fact that these people are against Donald Trump is a good reason to support him in 2020.

Graphic credit

Civis Americanus is the pen name of an American Thinker contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way.