Fellow Liberals, Please Stop The Casual Anti-Semitism: "Wall of Shame" Edition

Dear Liberal Friends - especially my fellow progressive Christians,

I was disappointed to see some of you passing this lovely infographic around Facebook today (slightly modified, below.)

We’re supposed to care about human rights, human dignity, and compassion.  We're supposed to oppose the spread of hateful propaganda.  Yes?

Anti-Semitic infographic appropriately categorized by RadicalCentrist.us

So Jewish Israelis are "ruthless savages"?  Who are "inflicted [sic] with an insatiable greed"? 

America Is Too Great For Donald Trump's Hate-Mongering

This is not who we are as Americans.

Trump's just warming up to full-fledged rage. Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0

     
Israeli columnist Chemi Shalev recently drew an interesting parallel between Donald Trump's current anti-Latino/Hispanic propaganda and European anti-Semitic propaganda of a century ago.  

I disagree with his column’s larger thesis.  But this example of old European anti-Semitic propaganda he included got me thinking about the fear-mongering propaganda we hear increasingly here in the U.S.:

Iranian Leaders Are Anti-Semitic, Not "Merely" Anti-Zionist

Tomb of Biblical prophet Daniel in Susa, Iran / Photo: ninara, CC BY 2.0

Roy Isacowitz of “In These Times” is engaging in some wishful thinking if he believes that Iranian leaders’ gripe with Israel is solely Anti-Zionist in nature.

Unfortunately, the reality is that Iranian leaders' anti-Zionism quite happily coexists with a big, steaming vat of anti-Jewish hatred.  Their state-sanctioned media and leaders often propagate John Bircher-esque and Nazi-inspired global Jewish conspiracy nonsense, some downright silly conspiracy theories, like this, this, this, and this, racist stereotypes so ugly they'd make Adolph Hitler blush, idiotic blood libel (claims that Jewish people use blood of murdered non-Jewish children to make Passover matzo), and declarations that not just Israel, but the Jewish people are to be eradicated from the Earth.  The Ayatollah and former President Ahmadinejad have been particularly egregious on this front.[1]