On Tuesday, Jonathan Chait asked whether anti-Semitism “will split Democrats like it split Labour?” I believe the answer is clear: Anti-Semitism is already splitting Democrats, and if they’re not careful, it will devastate their party just as it has devastated the British Labour Party.
The comparisons between the two major left-wing parties in America and Britain are increasingly evident. On Wednesday, Democrats couldn’t even muster the votes to issue a basic condemnation of numerous anti-Semitic remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. That divergence speaks to the very same issue that has sent Labour into a spiraling crisis.
The failure of party leaders to take an unequivocal position against anti-Semitism is not a good look for Democrats. To understand the risks facing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., one only need look at the Labour Party’s experience over the past few months.
Labour’s crisis began with activists sending anti-Semitic messages to Jewish party members. It then escalated when Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn was found to have endorsed anti-Semitic imagery. Then came suggestions of Corbyn’s disregard for the meaning of the Holocaust, evidence of his open honoring of Jew killers, and his only reluctant acceptance of international definitions of anti-Semitism. Today, Labour’s crisis grows as Corbyn self-investigates over his own office’s anti-Semitism while allowing Labour fanatics to continue their Jew purging.
It’s working: A number of parliamentarians recently quit Labour in protest. And the Conservative Party, despite facing its own massive crisis over Brexit, is rising in the polls.
For Democrats, then, the question must be: When and how should the line be drawn? Because the lesson of anti-Semitism is that equivocation and hesitation by leaders are like gasoline to its flames.
