☆ Expert: Response to Rosen Defacement Flyer suggests systemic antisemitism within local political culture
Detail from a San Jose pro-Hamas flyer, posted by JCRC Bay Area on X (formerly known as Twitter)
Bay Area Jewish leaders have roundly condemned the recent rally poster that targeted County DA Jeff Rosen with antisemitic tropes and imagery, but South Bay media largely has yet to acknowledge the incident. Alan Perlman, PhD, a forensic linguist based in New Hampshire, unpacks it all in an exclusive email conversation with Opp Now's co-founder Christopher Escher, and suggests that the imbroglio discloses how the world's oldest hatred is alive and well in Silicon Valley.
Opportunity Now: There's a lot of imagery in the Rosen flyer that can be construed as antisemitic. The crossing out of the eyes usually indicates somebody is dead. The tattooing for Rosen's forehead with Hamas slogan recalls tattooing numbers on Eastern European Jews enslaved in Nazi death camps. The whole picture is tainted in Hamas green. How do you unpack the antisemitic tropes in this piece?
Alan Perlman: This is an exercise in semiotics, the interpretation of signs and symbols. The green and the Hamas slogan (I'd like a translation)* are the clear indicators of association with Hamas. The X's and forehead tattoos are generic (and hostile) and when associated with Hamas can be read as antisemitic by anyone who is at all sensitive to it, since everyone knows that Hamas wants the eradication of the Jews.
*Editor's note (excerpted from Wikipedia): Intifada is an Arabic word literally meaning, as a noun, "tremor", "shivering", "shuddering". It is derived from an Arabic term nafada meaning "to shake", "shake off", "get rid of", as a dog might shrug off water, or as one might shake off sleep, or dirt from one's sandals.
ON: The relative silence from the local political class on this issue has been concerning for many. Why is it that when other marginalized and historically oppressed groups get targeted in this manner, politicians link arms to protest; but when it's Jews, they just shrug their shoulders and say “move along”?
AP: The following will account for why 2–3% of the population is the target of over half of the hate crimes—and politicians don’t care.
(1) The main reason right now is that the founders of Israel were white Europeans, therefore, according to the liberal/left mind-cancer, “oppressors.” Wait … what? Jews have had to fight six wars to keep from being annihilated—and they’re the oppressors?
Both Israelis and Americans are “colonizers” (a mendacious and deceitful use of the word), according to the proponents of liberal orthodoxy. These people are ignorant of the facts.
Jews are not colonizers in any common sense of the word. They’d been living on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean for thousands of years. And many Jews today are from Morocco, North Africa, and Ethiopia. Even if they are Israeli citizens, they’re “people of color,” hardly “white supremacists.”
(2) The ascendance of the left in the last few decades has lifted the rock and revealed the slime of original, historical, irrational antisemitism.
Jew-hatred begins with differentness. Their whole culture is different—language, beliefs, holidays. The rejection of Jesus’ divinity has historically been a source of Christian wrath. But Jews also got blamed for causing the plague by poisoning the wells. Well, they had to blame somebody.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who, unlike the Amish, cluster in the NY area where their differentness is on display to large numbers of people, sport side-curls and the black hats and suits of their 19th century Eastern European ancestors.
Then there’s the Jewish conspiracy: Jews control everything. Secret banking cabals. People who believe this are blind to the source of Jewish success. As with other, similar groups that Thomas Sowell writes about, they have strong family ties and an emphasis on hard work, education, and achievement.
Identifying as “the chosen people” understandably promotes resentment. But really, every group thinks they’re chosen, or else why would people join?
So no, Jews are deserving of no special protection, no protection at all. There will be no safe spaces for them, no trigger words, no immunity from hate speech (how about “gas the Jews”—isn’t that hate speech?).
ON: The Rosen defacement appears against the backdrop of a sharp uptick of antisemitic activity and commentary in the Bay Area. How does this stop?
AP: It does not and will not, unless and until rational people, in business, universities, and the media, mount a robust (including financial) response, which has already started to happen. But the diversity/inclusion/equity industrial complex has become bloated and arrogant; and as with any such bureaucracy, it has become its own reason for existence.
They long ago abandoned their goal of “proportional representation” (what? no Azerbaijanis or Afghans?). Now it’s just full-on favoritism and reverse racism. They will run with it as long as they can.
Advocates are suggesting that Rosen has an inherent bias and cannot be objective when it comes to issues of racism facing other minority groups. What this probably means is that he can't carry out the diversity/equity agenda quickly or enthusiastically enough. The key word is “inherent.” After all, he's white. And a Jew.
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