There have been troubling developments in both parties regarding antisemitism in the last few years, but I found this one especially perverse and disturbing. And of course, it shouldn’t be just Jews who are worried about it, not only because everyone should oppose antisemitism, but because antisemitism on both left and right is based within the growing illiberal constituencies in both parties. In short, you don’t have to be worried about antisemitism to wonder what the heck’s going on when the Democrats nominate a supporter of a radical Islamist, Iran-allied anti-American terrorist group that has murdered hundreds of Americans, weeks after an immigrant tied to that group tried to murder dozens of American schoolchildren.
From the Jewish Insider’s Josh Kraushaar:
The weekend ended with the news that Michigan Democratic delegates, at their statewide convention Sunday, nominated a Hezbollah supporter, Amir Makled, to the University of Michigan Board of Regents, choosing to oust a Jewish member, Jordan Acker, whose home and car were repeatedly vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and his family threatened.
Acker’s offenses? He backed efforts to hold anti-Israel campus protesters at the University of Michigan accountable for assaulting police and engaging in intimidation of Jewish students, among other instances of student misconduct. He declined to support efforts to divest university funds from Israel, along with other members of the Board of Regents, as a radical faction of students had demanded.
Acker’s non-Jewish Democratic ticketmate, Paul Brown, who also supported discipline against anti-Israel students, wasn’t targeted and was renominated for election. But the Democratic delegates ousted Acker in exchange for Makled, who has posted on social media with comments praising Hezbollah’s leaders and retweeted antisemitic messages from the conspiracy-theorizing influencer Candace Owens.
The results mark a new low for Michigan Democrats. Also over the weekend, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas.
