The Times of Israel (TOI), Blogs
By Dr. Clemens Heni
On January 31, 2024, a symbolic resolution for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was adopted by the Chicago City Parliament in the US with the decisive vote of the mayor. The vote itself had been 23 to 23, meaning that half of the elected representatives had rejected the antisemitic resolution, which had been promoted for weeks, while the other half had approved it.
Many dozens of antisemitic Palestinians and their friends had previously shouted around in parliament and were then banned from the chamber by their buddy, the mayor of Chicago, after some time. But dozens were allowed to continue shouting their antisemitic hate speech loudly behind glass windows in a kind of VIP lounge and display their antisemitic clothing such as the PLO scarf or keffiya.
Earlier, before being ejected from the meeting hall, Chicago’s only Jewish congresswoman Debra Silverstein had been antisemiticaly insulted and a typical antisemitic conspiracy myth intoned that she would use her “Zionist money” to “wipe crime off her desk”.
The modern form of Holocaust denial also comes to the fore here, the unspeakable crimes of Hamas are negated or celebrated and Israel is accused, just as the antisemitic government from South Africa is doing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The perpetrator-victim reversal is a very typical pattern of antisemitism, as research has shown in recent decades.
In her speech, Silverstein emphasized that it was intolerable to call for a ceasefire and not the complete destruction of Hamas.
The Palestinian organization had massacred over 1200 Jews in southern Israel in a genocidal frenzy on October 7, 2023 and kidnapped over 240, of which about 130 remain held hostage to this day.
Chicago Congressman Byron Sigcho-Lopez had brought fliers and in his speech accused the New York Times of documenting without evidence the genocidal pogroms of Hamas, including the unspeakable rapes of Jewish women by Muslim and Palestinian butchers. Sigcho-Lopez then celebrated the victory against Israel with antisemitic buddies, even if it was only symbolic – Chicago, however, is the third largest city in the USA after New York City and Los Angeles.
Public school students were given extra time off to participate in demonstrations in support of a permanent ceasefire and thus in support of the genocidal, Islamist-terrorist organization Hamas, according to the Wall Street Journal:
In the Windy City, the resolution was helped along by the Chicago Public Schools system, which offered students grace time to join Tuesday walk-outs supporting the ceasefire. Mr. Johnson said he was ‘incredibly proud’ of students for ‘exercising their constitutional rights’ and ‘speak(ing) up for righteousness.’
At these hate demonstrations against Israel on Tuesday, January 30, 2024, hundreds of students from high schools and other schools demonstrated for the antisemitic terror gang Hamas, for Palestine and against Israel.
The mayor was mighty proud of the young people who are standing up for Hamas and a permanent ceasefire, i.e. for the preservation of Hamas and against the complete disarmament of these Nazi-like monsters.
Here you can see the antisemites cheering after the decisive vote for a permanent ceasefire and thus for Hamas by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Chicago has the largest Palestinian community in the US. The 82-year-old “civil rights activist” Jesse Jackson received enthusiastic applause for his mere presence and support of the anti-Israel resolution.
At least two antisemites carried a Palestinian flag with a picture of the Hamas spokesman in Chicago yesterday, according to the Times of Israel (TOI).
So they are fans of the Muslim-Nazis of Hamas and are obviously allowed to walk around freely in the US and spread antisemitic propaganda. People with flags like the one in Chicago should be charged with supporting terrorism and genocide, just like neo-Nazis who deny or celebrate the Holocaust.
Members of the “democratic socialists” in Chicago campaigned for and supported Johnson in 2023, as Politico magazine reports. Reactionary, antisemitic, but in the woke language of the mainstream called “progressives”, anti-Zionist employees of the City of Chicago have been agitating for a permanent ceasefire since the fall of 2023, analogous to employees in the White House of Joe Biden, who is a Zionist and close friend of the only Jewish state.
After the worst mass murder of Jews since the Shoah on 7 October 2023, the antisemitic organization “Democratic Socialists of America” is engaging in a typical perpetrator-victim reversal and is calling for no military aid for Israel from the USA and an end to the “massacres”, by which it means Israel’s self-defense.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has documented and criticized several examples of antisemitism by the “Democratic Socialists of America”. In Salt Lake City, for example, the group incites against the “settler-colonialist apartheid” of Israel, in San Francisco it talks about the “decolonization of Palestine” and calls for further mass murder of Jews with the slogan “from the river to the sea”, i.e. the destruction of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel. Only a few days after October 7, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in Denver, Colorado, calls for the complete destruction of Israel – “from the river to the sea“, as the ADL notes. For antisemites like these anti-democratic “socialists” and “democrats”, Israel is the perpetrator and not the victim of genocidal Muslim and Palestinian violence.
At any rate, this is also the milieu that supported the mayor of Chicago in the election campaign. It is therefore his “thanks” to these antisemitic agitators of all genders that he has now intolerably given his decisive vote to the anti-Israel resolution.
The New Yorker and Jacobin magazines, and of course the Young Democratic Socialists of America, were all excited in 2023 about ‘their’ new Mayor Johnson in Chicago, who could be a role model for major cities and other communities across America. What will they say now that their hero has helped an antisemitic resolution to pass with his vote?
America, and therefore the West, is teetering on the brink. In view of Brandon Johnson’s sensational election victory as mayor of Chicago in the spring of 2023, the US Democratic Party has decided to hold the party convention for the 2024 presidential election in Chicago of all places. This will be the most difficult battle for the pro-Israeli Joe Biden, because the extreme opposition to his pro-Israel policy comes from within his own party.
America, and therefore the West, is teetering on the brink. In view of Brandon Johnson’s sensational election victory as mayor of Chicago in the spring of 2023, the US Democratic Party has decided to hold the party convention for the 2024 presidential election in Chicago of all places. This will be the most difficult battle for the pro-Israeli Joe Biden, because the extreme opposition to his pro-Israel policy comes from within his own party. Added to this is the new right-wing agitator and populist Donald Trump, who has still not conceded his 2020 election defeat. Trump’s isolationism and complete arbitrariness could have dramatic consequences for Israel. Trump’s antisemitic and conspiracy-mythic voter base complements the antisemitic and conspiracy-mythic voter base of parts of the Democrats, i.e. the part that is aggressively pro-Palestine.
Immediately after the genocidal massacre by Hamas, Johnson failed politically. A few days after October 7, 2023, he remained equidistant. However, his parliamentary group leader in the Chicago parliament, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, re-tweeted a tweet by the notorious Ilhan Omar, Democrat member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota, in which the antisemitic classic of Jews and Israel as “child murderers” in Gaza and Palestine is rehashed. Ramirez-Rosa himself supports the antisemitic BDS movement, which is why he was dropped as a candidate for the position of lieutenant governor by Daniel Biss in September 2017. However, this did not hinder the career of Ramirez-Rosa, who openly appears as a Palestine supporter on his X profile.
He only had to resign from his position as leader of the Democrats in the Chicago City Council in November 2023 because he apparently has a violence problem – he had put his body in the way of a female colleague and prevented her from entering the meeting room.
The misery doesn’t just consist of people like this “Carlos”. The misery lies in the fact that everywhere, from Berlin to Chicago, San Francisco, Paris or London, those who supposedly stand up for diversity, tolerance and diversity are the exact same people who abandon or hate Jews and Israel and aggressively fight against them.
They are the very people who quite rightly oppose Trump or the AfD and recognize and criticize conspiracy myths, but as soon as a conspiracy myth or an antisemitic lie and perpetrator-victim reversal such as the fantasized “genocide” in Gaza come into play, the “do-gooders” remain silent. This currently affects millions of people in Germany who have taken to the streets and are against right-wing extremism in recent days and weeks – but these people remain silent about hatred of Jews because it comes from Muslims, Palestinians, left-wingers or oh so “progressive” people.
Those who see climate change as a huge threat are often those who see no problem in antisemitism and are antisemitic themselves, see Greta Thunberg. Conservatives, on the other hand, who deny man-made climate change, are sometimes more open to criticism of antisemitism, although this is often accompanied by the note that it is simply against left-wingers or migrants. But leftists and migrants, on the other hand, feel completely immune to criticism, as they are by definition immune to criticism. But today’s antisemitism of the 21st century comes primarily from Muslims and Islam, keyword Iran. Even otherwise secular leftists have been joining the chorus of anti-Zionists and Islamists for decades.
That was the biggest shock for Jews in Germany, the USA and worldwide, that they were left completely alone after the most terrible massacre, which definitely had a genocidal character, on October 7, 2023, and experienced antisemitic demonstrations, rallies and actions of varying intensity in the USA, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, England and everywhere else.
It was quite typical that the newly elected president of Harvard University had to resign after her refusal to categorize the call for genocide against Jews – “Palestine from the river to the sea” is a genocidal battle cry – as worth fighting and intolerable (which was also because she did unscientific and plagiaristic work). But it was a symbol worldwide of the so-called woke milieu, where it is always about diversity, equality and inclusion, that diversity, equality and inclusion does not mean Jews. Women’s groups refuse to call the documented rapes of Jewish women by Muslim men intolerable and repugnant, just as any rape is intolerable and repugnant. Even genocide researchers are stunned by the unbelievable brutality and sadism of Muslim men and Palestinians. Black Lives matter – but what about when it comes to Jewish lives? Black people in particular are at the forefront of defaming Israel, celebrating Hamas and wishing death on Jews. This was demonstrated when BLM Chicago posted a paraglider with a Palestinian flag. 90,000 people viewed it on X, which did not immediately delete this form of antisemitism and celebration of a genocidal massacre and blocked the account.
The core of the antisemitism problem in Chicago, however, is Brandon Johnson. From cooperating with a BDS supporter, to taking an equidistant stance after the largest massacre of Jews since the Shoah, to openly supporting Hamas with yesterday’s decision for a full ceasefire without fully disarming the Muslim-Nazis, Johnson shows which side he is on. He has given the antisemites in Chicago a field day with his vote, leaving behind a deeply divided city parliament and a massively shaken Democratic Party.
The Jewish Union Foundation and the Anti-Defamation League Midwest criticize the anti-Israel resolution of the city of Chicago and emphasize that in recent weeks Jewish life there is no longer safe. Jews are being insulted, stores are being graffitied and pro-Palestinian propaganda is being spread. The perpetrators – Muslims and Palestinians – are being victimized. The old antisemitic game of perpetrator-victim reversal – only it hasn’t happened on this scale since the Holocaust and all Israelis and Zionist Jews also thought that after Auschwitz and Babi Yar there could never be anything like it again. But Israel, for many reasons that are still being worked through, completely failed to protect its own people on October 7, 2023.
The US Democratic Party, however, will be pro-Israeli or it will not be. The election for American president in 2024 will be dramatic in every respect. The antisemite and sexist Trump must not win. But Joe Biden, who is also completely unqualified for the presidency because of his age, will face a massive antisemitic campaign from his own people.
Chicago is a beacon, contrary to any beacon of hope. The city is an antisemitic beacon. Democrats and the left must finally stand up against all forms of antisemitism, mainstream as well as right-wing, anti-Zionist and Holocaust trivializing antisemitism, but also and especially, because it is much more widespread, the anti-Jewish genocide celebrating, Hamas protecting, Muslim, Palestinian and left-wing antisemitism.
Am Israel Chai!