We’ve heard all the hoary lines by now. They’re not anti-Israel, they’re pro-Palestine. They’re not anti-Semitic, they’re anti-Zionists. They’re not in league with the Nazis, it’s the Zionists in the “apartheid state” who are the real fascists.
And yet, for all that trite and repeated talk, we always have new and uniquely despicable actions to prove that’s all just a phony front.
The latest: a “protest” of Jewish-owned businesses in Philadelphia on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom where the Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses across Germany and territory conquered by the Third Reich.
Apparently, all the nudging and winking and dog-whistling thus far was just a little too subtle for some of these people.
And while these were the same people who were once busy calling Donald Trump “literally Hitler,” now they’ve actually done it themselves, and in a sense that isn’t hyperbolic. One is almost impressed by that feat of intellectual wickedness and moral gymnastics.
According to the New York Post, the action is being sponsored by three groups, which will assemble on Sunday to boycott “Zionist” (read: Jewish-owned) businesses in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood.
The move is being spearheaded by Bike On Your Left, a left-wing cycling group, but they’re being joined by Philly Writers Against the War on Gaza and Boycott CookNSolo, which is dedicated specifically to haranguing restaurants owned by a restaurant group that just happens to be run by Jewish people.
“Ride around Rittenhouse with us as we show these zio business owners that we see them for the disgusting humans they are,” Bike On Your Left said in an Instagram post.
“We’ll flag as many bikes as we can and show our solidarity with the Palestinian community and oppressed folx everywhere.”
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Sort of surprised they used “folx” instead of “volk,” considering that this is happening one day before the anniversary of when the Nazis basically used the same logic to destroy Jewish businesses in an event that literally translates as “The Night of Broken Glass.”
One of the owners of the businesses targeted, Marti Lieberman, said she was shocked to find out she’d made the list and said the event was “scary.”
“You can’t get a break, and now I have to worry about being born Jewish,” she said, adding that the protesters probably got the idea she was pro-Israel because she wears a necklace bearing the Star of David.
“These people think I’m [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. I literally am just a Jewish girl from the suburbs who started a business,” she told the New York Post.
Meanwhile, 40-year-old Yehuda Sichel said the protest reminds him of what his forebears went through in Europe.
“As a Jewish business owner and grandson of Holocaust survivors, boycotts of Jewish businesses are very familiar to me, and not in a good way especially on the eve of Kristallnacht,” he said.
“They said on their own flyer they want to push Zionists out of their city, but obviously we are not going to be intimidated by this kind of stuff.”
At least this time, the anti-Semitic far left has spurred Democrats into a rare fit of condemnation for air-quotes “Free Palestine” types.
“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest and express their political views. But singling out businesses because their owners are Jewish is unacceptable and has no place in our city,” Democratic Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said in a statement.
“The planned November 8 boycott ride targets Jewish-owned restaurants in and around Rittenhouse Square and falls on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a date that carries profound pain for our Jewish neighbors and for all who remember where unchecked hatred can lead.”
“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest and express their political views. But singling out businesses because their owners are Jewish is unacceptable,” she added. “Anyone who engages in threats, intimidation, or unlawful conduct will be held accountable.”
As for the “intimidation” part, too late, but otherwise admirable. Similarly, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday called the move “deeply unsettling” and issued a warning of his own.
“By explicitly targeting businesses because their owners are Jewish, the organizers are engaging in a form of discrimination that falls back on some of the oldest antisemitic tropes and tactics in history,” he said in a statement.
“This is not simply a protest directed at the policies of Israel, rather it singles out our fellow Pennsylvanians based on their Jewish identity, targeting them for policies they have nothing to do with and no ability to affect because of their faith.”
Not that this matters, because that’s always been the point. With a few exceptions of simple-minded popinjays who just take the matter as a package deal of progressive beliefs, the pro-Palestinian cause is by its very nature anti-Semitic.
It excuses murder and rape by Hamas and its confederates while calling Israel’s measured military retribution “genocide.”
But, in case you needed more evidence that this is the ethical rot of the modern left, here’s the perfect object lesson: a Kristallnacht bike ride. You couldn’t make this stuff up, and until a few years ago, one couldn’t imagine anyone would even want to.
This article originally appeared on The Western Journal and is reposted with permission.
