Tea at Trianon: More Anti-semitism from the Left

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, February 14, 2019

More Anti-semitism from the Left

From The National Review:

Representative Ilhan Omar, who represents Minnesota’s fifth congressional district, has chosen an ugly and reprehensible bandwagon to climb aboard. Representative Omar insists that American Jews are paying members of Congress to take a pro-Israel stance in what the ever-gentle Matthew Yglesias of Vox with characteristic boldness describes as some “moderately ill-advised tweets.” Representative Omar specifically cites the actions of AIPAC and, quoting from the noted political philosopher Puff Daddy, insists that it’s “about the Benjamins, baby,” those apparently being Franklin and Netanyahu.

This is not Representative Omar’s first foray into anti-Semitic tropes; earlier, she accused Jews of “hypnotizing” the world on Israel’s behalf, a statement for which she later apologized after sustained public criticism. Her colleague Representative Rashida Tlaib of Henry Ford’s home state has joined Representative Omar in this anti-Semitic smear campaign, having accused Jewish Americans of having dual loyalties, calling to mind another ancient Jew-hating line of argument.

The Jewish state divides the Democratic party: The majority of the American public is pro-Israel — but that average includes the 87 percent of Republicans who are pro-Israel and the 59 percent of independents who share that view, which is a minority position among Democrats, fewer than half of whom take a friendly view of the Jewish state. The Left more broadly is increasingly hostile not only to the government of the state of Israel but to Jews per se, and increasingly tolerant of overt anti-Semitism, as in the case of the organizers of the Women’s March and their embrace of the aforementioned Louis Farrakhan, whom even Barack Obama felt obliged to court, albeit shamefacedly. (Read more.)