The most recent attempted assassination of US President Donald Trump and the attempted murder of two Orthodox Jews on the streets of London should not surprise anyone who followed the elevation of the bigot terror supporter Hasan Piker by the American left in recent weeks.
The New York Times went all out in its attempt to mainstream Piker, first with an essay by Ezra Klein claiming that “Hassan Piker is not the enemy" despite Piker’s extensive history of antisemitism and support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Klein, a Jew, found Piker’s claims that Jews are “inbred" and his justification of 9/11 no barrier to complete acceptance by the left. Not long after, Piker appeared in a video interview with Jia Tolentino, again published by the New York Times, in which the pair justified violence, murder, and theft. Piker stated that he is “pro-piracy," meaning not just downloading movies from illegal sites, but stealing cars and stealing artwork from the Louvre.
The justification: The rich don’t play by the rules, so no rules need to apply to me, even though I am one of the rich.
This would have been bad enough, but Piker went on to justify murder, specifically the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, because in his mind, Thompson was guilty of “social murder."
These evil statements did not receive any significant pushback from Times Opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman, another Jewish Times employee who seems to have no problem with antisemitism when it serves the left-wing agenda.
The New York Times has become so morally degenerate, so dedicated to hate, that it did not think twice about spreading justifications for mass theft and murder of people the left does not like.
When the most prominent newspaper in America is spreading antisemitism and justifications of violence, is it any wonder that violence follows?
Cole Allen truly thought that he was on a mission to save lives and save democracy after consuming and falling for every conspiracy theory made about President Trump. And by the twisted logic of people like Hasan Piker, who could blame him? If, as the New York Times allowed the guests it promoted to claim, the murder of a CEO can be justified, how much more justified would the murder of a president who has been smeared as a rapist pedophile mass murderer and the reincarnation of Hitler be?
And by the logic of the left and the Islamists the left loves, who could blame the terrorist who attempted to cut the throats of Jews in Golders Green? The Jewish State and the Jewish people have been subjected to such demonization and lies over the last three years that the murder of Jewish children is something many on the ‘woke’ left and right see as understandable or even justified.
As attacks on Jews become more and more commonplace, from stabbings, shootings, attempted synagogue and preschool bombings, to mass murders at Hanukkah celebrations, the attempts to explain and justify each act of violence against innocents grow as well. The very fact of being born Jewish is enough to justify murder, according to the lies spread by antisemites like Piker and the left-wing media and politicians who promote his hatred and radicalism.
Media outlets like the New York Times have spent decades spreading lies about Israel and downplaying the genocidal goals of those who seek to murder millions of Jews. And during the war started by Hamas’s latest attempt to commit genocide, they spread every lie Hamas made up to invert good and evil, giving the people in the west who cheer for another Holocaust the justification that the genocide they seek is justified by a fake genocide allegedly committed by the people they seek to murder en masse.
What is the murder of Orthodox Jews in London, compared to the fake genocide committed by Israel? What is the bombing of a Jewish preschool in Michigan, compared to the suffering of the children of Gaza - at least when the Jews can be blamed?
The war on Jews could have been prevented if the media and political leaders had stood up for the truth instead of letting antisemites get away with their lies and justifying their hate. If outlets like the New York Times were not dedicated to spreading every lie Hamas claimed as fact with no caveat, if authorities in the UK took antisemitism seriously and prosecuted the men who drove through Jewish neighborhoods blasting calls “f- the Jews" and “rape their daughters," if the previous US administration had not been so cowed by the genocidal Jew haters that they tried to win the antisemitic vote by claiming that genocidal maniacs “have a point" and showed “exactly what the human emotion should be," putting blood in the water, there would be less Jewish blood being spilled now.
To his credit, President Trump is doing what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should have done years ago - standing up to the antisemites on his side. He has publicly denounced the antisemites who are trying to take over the right the same way they took over the left, breaking with Tucker Calrson and Candace Owens as they descend into anti-Jewish lunacy and declaring them beyond the pale for the Republican Party. This is something Democrats were too cowardly to do when members of ‘the Squad’ like Ilhan Omar displayed naked antisemitism in 2019, allowing their party to be hijacked by people who love to see Jews slaughtered. There is hope that at least one party won’t be dominated by Jew-haters thanks to Trump’s stand against the Jew-haters of the right.
But as long as the left continues to mainstream antisemites and violence-justifies like Hasan Piker, as long as outlets like the New York Times continue to spread lies about Israel and justifications for violence and murder, as long as murderous hate is tolerated and praised by left-wing leaders, expect violence, assassinations and attacks on Jews to follow.
Gary Willig is a veteran Arutz Sheva staff member.