The blindness of the left wing over October 7

When Jews talk about modern left-wing antisemitism, the most common response from the left is that they’re not antisemitic, they’re anti-Zionist, and even if some of them are antisemitic, it’s not important because the antisemitism from the far right is far more dangerous. Well, rest assured, goysplainers, we know how bad antisemitism is from fascists. Many of us have lost large branches of our family tree to it.

As recently as 2017 we watched men carrying tiki torches through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and we heard the then US president, Donald Trump, describe them as “very fine people”. So maybe it’s because we focused so much on antisemitism from the right that we missed what was happening at the other end of the ideological spectrum.

Because what shocked so many of us after October 7 was the hate from the left.

The specific faction of the left that I mean, the one that reacted most virulently against Israel, is variously known as the progressive left, the identarian left, the online left, the intersectional left or the woke left. It is the left that is so popular on college campuses, among the faculty and students. A few decades ago it was known as the far left or hard left, when its focus was class oppression.

Now it is identity oppression. Yet as David Baddiel famously pointed out in his bestselling 2021 book about antisemitism, Jews Don’t Count, when it comes to identity politics and an awareness of vulnerable minority groups, to the far left, Jews really don’t count.