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Source: AP Photo/Kathy Willens
I'm not sure why anyone is surprised. There is an intense and growing hostility to Israel on the hard Left, and there's quite a bit of overlap between "anti-Zionists" and anti-Semites. In many cases, the former phenomenon is the modern, politically acceptable manifestation of the latter. When Rep. Ilhan Omar spewed some flagrantly anti-Semitic rhetoric a few years back, Democrats' left-wing base rallied to her cause and successfully pressured Nancy Pelosi to rewrite a condemnatory resolution to de-emphasize Omar's anti-Semitism by expanding it into a watery denunciation of many forms of bigotry. It was deliberately transformed from a specific rebuke of anti-Semitism to a meaningless "all hate matters" document. "All lives matter" is an offensive reply to "Black lives matter," they say – and I've come to better understand why many people believe that. Yet it would appear that the progressive Left's go-to reaction to rank anti-Semitism, including Jews being hunted down and beaten in the streets, is to "all lives matter" the problem. It's not a coincidence that prominent leftists in American politics have chosen to castigate rising anti-Jewish hate, but not without mentioning Islamophobia in the same digital breath: