“This is not a dog whistle. It’s not subtle,” screams a knockout from an article at the Huffington Post accusing the Trump camp of anti-Semitism. The authors, Sam Levine and Sam Stein, are presumably Jewish, which demonstrates that even Jews can be ridiculously thin-skinned when they are liberal.
I’m not sure when the HuffPo began caring about Jews, but never mind that. The ad that Messrs. Levine and Stein are positively apoplectic over includes a six-pointed star. The graphic, which appeared on Twitter but has since removed, is reproduced below:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The HuffPost piece complains that the ad represents a case of “anti-Semitic imagery aimed at a candidate who isn’t even Jewish.” If that shot in their own foot isn’t enough to render their criticism meaningless, they go on to provide further counter-evidence:
The irony, of course, is that Trump has Jewish relatives. His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner, who is Jewish himself. Their kids are Jewish too. Trump even has a number of Jewish backers.
An even greater irony that seems to have escaped Levine and Stein’s attention is Hillary Clinton’s own blatant anti-Semitism. This was evidenced in her term of endearment for Bill Clinton’s campaign manager back when he was running for the U.S. House. After Bubba lost that election, Hillary turned to her then-boyfriend’s campaign manager, Paul Fray, and called him a “f**king Jew b*stard.”
Mrs. Clinton’s anti-Israel stance has been heavily documented by LU contributor Jeff Dunetz. Again, this would matter little to liberals, who are also almost to a man pro-Palestinian and sworn enemies of the Jewish State. Why American Jews continue to vote for them is a mystery for the ages.
So what explains the Trump campaign’s curious selection of a six-pointed star, which — the HuffPo writers note paradoxically — was replaced soon after it appeared with a red circle? That’s easy for anyone who posts memes on social media. You avail yourself of whatever shapes you can find that complement your layout. In this case, the “designer” used two rectangles (one emblazoned with the word “History,” the other with “made”) and a six-pointed star tilted approximately ten degrees to the left of the vertical axis. (If Levine and Stein wanted to add weight to their conspiracy theory, they might have noted that the topmost text rectangle uses the colors of Israel’s flag.)
As for Team Trump, was it a dumb idea to use a shape that liberals would pounce on as somehow signifying the Star of David? Of course. The HuffPo writers quote Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (another Jew) as saying:
I suspect this was a case of stupidity and not malice, but no matter what, his campaign keeps making foolish mistakes.
The whole keruffle is reminiscent of accusations against Sarah Palin with regard to a political map that contained what liberals chose to view as crosshairs, leading to the totally unsupportable conclusion that the former Alaska governor was promoting violence against Democrats.
In their efforts to interview as many members of the tribe as they could, Levine and Stein also reached out to former Trump campaign manager Roger Stone (yes, Trump originally hired a Jew to manage his campaign!) Stone emailed back:
A sheriff badge is the same shape as the Star of David. You should be ashamed to publish crap like this — but then you don’t work for a real news organization.
I couldn’t have said it any better.
