Why the Jewish Right Must Condemn Marjorie Taylor Greene

Why are some right-of-center Jewish organizations finding it so difficult to publicly condemn anti-Semitic congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene? A few, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Coalition for Jewish Values, have spoken out. We at Herut, too, condemn Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremism and her endorsements of anti-Semitic conspiracies. But too many others have remained silent.

The silence of other organizations surely cannot be because of any doubts regarding Greene’s record of espousing anti-Semitism, violence and lunatic conspiracy theories. That ugly record speaks for itself — in volumes. In videotaped diatribes, likes, tweets and retweets over the past several years, Representative Greene promoted the deeply anti-Semitic QAnon movement, encouraged violence against congressional leaders and claimed that the 9/11 attacks, the Las Vegas massacre and various school shootings were hoaxes.

With regard to Jews, she wrote on Facebook on November 17, 2018 that California’s wildfires were caused by “lasers or blue beams of light” being fired from “space solar generators” financed by the vice chairman of “Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm.” Can anybody doubt that singling out the best-known Jewish name in the world of finance is anti-Semitic?

Less known is that Greene, also in November 2018, “liked” a tweet accusing the Mossad of complicity in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That year, she also shared a video in which British extremist Nick Griffin rails against an “unholy alliance of leftists, capitalists and Zionist supremacists.”

Considering how often Jews have been targeted — and hurt — by conspiracy-mongering, you would assume that every Zionist and Jewish organization, from right to left, partisan to nonpartisan would speak out against Greene. For those who didn’t, here’s why you should:

Those in the Jewish community who claim to fight anti-Semitism are credible only if they loudly and clearly denounce the hatred when it comes from all camps — not just from the camp of their opponents. Republicans who condemn anti-Semitism only from the left are no more credible than Democrats who condemn anti-Semitism only from the right.

Anyone who is reluctant to condemn Greene for fear of weakening the Republican Party is making a grave mistake. It will strengthen, not weaken, the GOP to rid it of the anti-Semites on its fringe — just as it strengthened the political right when William F. Buckley, Jr. drove the extremist John Birch Society out of the conservative movement in the early 1960s because it was failing to curb Jew-hatred and racism in its ranks.

It will strengthen, not weaken, the GOP to rid it of the anti-Semites on its fringe.

It’s a shame that Democrats did not respond forcefully enough when Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota made her infamous remarks accusing supporters of Israel of paying off members of Congress in 2019. Omar was not removed from any committees, and the resolution that the Democrats adopted merely condemned anti-Semitism in general, instead of acknowledging Omar’s. Jewish Republicans who refuse to ostracize Greene today are repeating the terrible mistake made by Jewish Democrats who refused to ostracize Omar.

It’s not just a matter of credibility. It’s also a matter of effectiveness. When groups on the left denounce Marjorie Taylor Greene, it doesn’t have much impact. But when groups on the right condemn her, it matters. It matters because those are the people that Representative Greene might listen to. She dismisses criticism of her that comes from the left; but when it comes from her own camp, there’s a chance, however small, that she might pay attention. Perhaps it will curb some of her public expressions of extremism.

Where condemning Greene especially matters is in establishing parameters for what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable, in civilized discourse. Many people on the left think the worst of people on the right. They assume that all conservatives are racists or reactionaries or what-have-you. The case of Marjorie Taylor Greene is where the Jewish right must draw the line and prove their critics wrong. Condemning Greene says that she is beyond the pale, she does not deserve to be considered part of the legitimate political right.

At the end of the day, anti-Semites don’t make political distinctions. They hate all Jews. To counter them, Jewish organizations likewise must take a bipartisan approach of condemning all anti-Semites. The first responsibility of leaders of Jewish and Zionist organizations is supposed to be to their members and to the Jewish people, not to a particular political party or a particular current or former president.

Right-of-center Jewish groups have shown over the years that they can be quite prolific and vocal when they want to be. When they have an opinion on some issue, they make it clear. And that makes their silence regarding Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremism all the more conspicuous and all the more disturbing. It’s time to speak out.

Moshe Phillips is national director of Herut North America’s U.S. division; Herut is an international movement for Zionist pride and education and is dedicated to the ideals of pre-World War II Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Herut’s website is www.herutna.org