Anti-Semitism, that enduring bigotry that knows no party loyalty, is primarily a thing of the “the right-wing movement,” New York mayor and 2020 presidential candidate Bill de Blasio claimed Tuesday.
This assertion ought to come as a surprise to the people of New York City, which has experienced a 90% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2019 (it is only June), as my Washington Examiner colleague Julio Rosas notes.
Of the 184 incidents categorized as “hate crimes” this year in New York City, 110 were against Jewish people.
Who knew that New York City was such a hotbed of far-right activity?
“I think the ideological movement that is anti-Semitic is the right-wing movement,” de Blasio told reporters, according to the New York Post. For good measure, the mayor also alleged the Left has no similar problem with anti-Jewish bigotry.
A journalist asked about anti-Semitism “on the Left,” citing specifically the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” movement. This could have also been a reference to the national Democratic Party’s tolerance of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic declarations about wealthy Jewish conspiracies and the dual loyalties of Jewish Americans who support Israel. De Blasio merely shrugged off the implication that the Left has a problem in this regard.
“I want to be very, very clear, the violent threat, the threat that is ideological is very much from the Right,” the New York City mayor said.
That is a hell of a thing to assert, considering what is happening right now in de Blasio’s city. The Ku Klux Klan is not responsible for the surge of violence against orthodox Jews and vandalism against Synagogues. He is essentially covering up for recent anti-Semitic violence in Brooklyn — violence and vandalism committed on video by other minorities against Jews. It has become something of a national scandal and has no visible relation to anyone right of center.
But the mayor wants to shrug this off as a “right-wing” problem, in Brooklyn of all places? Has he never heard of Al Sharpton? Has he never been to the city he claims to govern?
And to think: de Blasio wants to be president of the United States.
