Hollywood bigwig Michael Douglas, back from a family vacation in “Southern Europe” (countries unspecified), where his son Dylan was the victim of anti-Semitic abuse at a local hotel, decided to get this upsetting experience off his chest in a piece for the Los Angeles Times. The article concludes with this well-intentioned but utterly naïve comment:

… [I]f we confront anti-Semitism whenever we see it, if we combat it individually and as a society, and use whatever platform we have to denounce it, we can stop the spread of this madness.

That’s a lot of “ifs,” if you ask me.  Besides, who are the “we” that he thinks will agree to confront, combat, or denounce anti-Semitism?  Not anybody in the Arab world, Muslim Africa, Russia, China, the “restricted zones” of Paris, Brussels, Oslo…  And closer to home, the “we” will absolutely not include Louis Farrakhan and his followers, in or out of jail.   

Well, never mind.  By way of explanation of what happened to his son, Douglas offers “three reasons anti-Semitism is appearing now with renewed vigilance [sic].”

In a time when income disparity is growing, when hundreds of millions of people live in abject poverty, some find Jews to be a convenient scapegoat rather than looking at the real source of their problems.

A second root cause of anti-Semitism derives from an irrational and misplaced hatred of Israel. Far too many people see Israel as an apartheid state and blame the people of an entire religion for what, in truth, are internal national-policy decisions.

Europe is now home to 25 million to 30 million Muslims. Within any religious community that large, there will always be an extremist fringe, people who are radicalized and driven with hatred, while rejecting what all religions need to preach — respect, tolerance and love.

Great, just great: more liberal cant about “income disparity.”  Didn’t Jen-Marie Psaki-Harf over at the State Department say a couple of weeks ago that the way to get ISIS to behave is by providing economic opportunities?  Douglas is cribbing off the teleprompter of the guy he voted into office, twice, along with most of Hollywood.

As to the second item, Douglas should have added that one of those who “see Israel as an apartheid state” is none other than James Earl Carter, peanut farmer, Nobel Prize winner, and 39^th president of the United States.  In 2006, Carter published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.  Oh, wait – Douglas probably voted for him, too.  Never mind.

The last item is just silly.  An “extremist fringe” will appear in any religious community that is large enough?  Christian religious communities number in the millions worldwide.  There haven’t been any “extremist fringes” among them attacking synagogues, killing police officers in cold blood, beheading hostages, and so on.  Douglas is parroting the liberal line on Islam, not daring to place the finger of blame where it really belongs.

Speaking of the finger of blame, what happened to Douglas’s son – who got off easy in a posh hotel – was one of many consequences of Obama’s policies.  Of course, liberals like Douglas wouldn’t dream of admitting this truth.

Over the past six years, the Obama administration hasn’t merely rejected American exceptionalism; Obama has completely abandoned our role as leader of the free world, held proudly since WWII.  Add to this his ’09 apology tour, trading hardcore terrorists for the deserter Bowe Bergdahl, the pathological reluctance of his administration to link ISIS terrorists with Islam, Obama’s personal animosity toward Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, Obama’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and his opposition to its overthrow, his pursuit of nuclear negotiations with Iran despite the fact that an agreement would have no legal force, and so on and so forth.

My bet is that Michael Douglas and family will be staying put in Hollywood until Obama leaves office.