Whatever Happened To That “Surging Anti-Semitism” Narrative?
If one casts one’s mind all the way back to February, barely more than a month ago, one can likely recall the absolute media frenzy which erupted over a purported surge in anti-semitic sentiment across the United States. A wave of bomb threats had targeted various Jewish institutions; searing images showed young children being escorted out of their daycare facilities. None of the threats materialized into actual physical violence, but it was disquieting to see toddlers being ushered into the streets with their safety seemingly in jeopardy.
In all, well over 100 bomb threats were called into Jewish cultural centers, schools, museums, and other establishments. That would’ve been a significant news story in its own right, but what really gave the story explosive media traction was the implied political connotation: Whether tacitly or directly, Trump had fostered this noxious environment and thereby abetted the rise of newfound anti-semitism. Although there were select instances of Jewish cemetery vandalism that also informed the burgeoning narrative, its linchpin was plainly the bomb threats, which were occurring at a disconcerting pace.
The New York Times editorialized against Trump’s perceived reticence to address the matter head-on: He had dismissively responded to an Orthodox Jewish reporter who was seeking to extract some kind of denunciation. Trump, as he frequently does, disputed the premise of the reporter’s question. This in turn was taken as indication that Trump had some underhanded goal of stoking anti-semitism for his own political advantage. Jewish groups called on Trump to more forthrightly condemn anti-semitism, and wondered whether his not having done so was a dark signaling tactic to his exercised base, brimming as it allegedly is with anti-semites. The idea was that Trump had somehow enabled or incited anti-semitic expression in the populace, and this had taken the sinister form of bomb threats. Trump, ipso facto, bore personal responsibility. For some of a slightly more histrionic bent, this series of events was seen as confirmation that Nazis had literally seized the White House.
Key to the emergent narrative was that seemingly no one required any information whatsoever about the perpetrators before advancing it. It was simply assumed without evidence that the bomb threats must be traceable to a person or persons motivated by pro-Trump political views, and that this was indicative of surging anti-semitism brought on by Trump’s rhetoric/policies/campaign/mannerisms. Circumspection and caution were thrown out the window.
Naturally, this dearth of basic explanatory information didn’t stop media personalities from propagating a highly incendiary narrative which comported with their pre-existing beliefs.
Media personalities invoked the Holocaust, and suggested that any skepticism of the validity of the narrative that had erupted was tantamount to the enabling of genocide.
As should be blaringly apparent to anyone who’s observed their incorrigible herd behavior, the media (broadly understood) is highly susceptible to group-think and in turn highly susceptible to fueling moral panics without sufficient empirical basis. There’s a long history here, and Twitter, with its immediacy and amplification powers, has only heightened the effect. For many in the media, an alarmist climate is a profitable climate, because it increases ratings, clicks, retweets. Combine this incentive scheme with an unwavering pose of faux superiority and you have a recipe for overblown mania.
All this culminated on February 28, when Trump led his address to a joint session of Congress with a condemnation of the bomb threats. He’d already criticized anti-semitism repeatedly, but making such a declaration in that high-profile a setting was almost certainly intended to placate critics who’d been lambasting him for weeks. (For some, nothing ever would’ve been enough.)
Fast forward one month. We now know with virtual certitude that the bomb threats were, in fact, not reflective of a societal surge in anti-semitic sentiment; for one, because the person allegedly responsible was not even located inside the United States. He was located in, bizarrely enough, Israel. The man whom Israeli authorities identify as being behind the threats is 19-year-old Michael Kaydar, an Israel-American living in Ashkelon.
Since the arrest, the media’s relative disinterest in the story has been amazing to behold. In February, the bomb threats were hyper-charged headline news, led TV broadcasts, and were hugely dominant on social media. You’d think the apprehension of the perpetrator would engender similar attention. But instead the reaction was curiously… muted. One reason for this mutedness is likely that the arrest showed the folly of the initial narrative: People’s eagerness to latch onto whatever explanation seemed most politically convenient and viscerally gratifying had backfired. Naturally, those responsible for whipping up a frenzy wouldn’t be especially keen to draw attention to that fact; given that, in hindsight, they look incredibly foolish.
It’s worth pondering how drastically different the post-arrest media tenor would’ve been if the identity of the alleged perpetrator were different. Rather than an Israel-American teen with a claimed neurological condition, say the perpetrator was found to have been a 28-year-old avowed Trump supporter sitting in his basement somewhere in Arkansas. And further say that his motive for calling in these threats was explicitly because he harbored anti-semitic beliefs, and felt that carrying out the threats would be instrumental in helping to facilitate the Trump agenda.
If that were to have been the case, does anyone doubt that at least a week’s worth of headlines would’ve been dominated by this (hypothetical) idiot? Denunciations and disavowals would’ve been endlessly sought, every detail of the guy’s life parsed. Media talking heads would’ve joyously used the incident to denigrate Trump and “Trump supporters” writ large. But with the arrest of the Israeli-American 19-year-old… the entire story just seemed to fade into the background. No fanfare. No grand conclusions drawn. No narratives stoked. Just… quiet.
The accused’s representatives have suggested that an “inoperable brain tumor” might be a contributing factor to his actions. Maybe so. But let’s say an avowed Trump supporter had cited a tumor as a contributing factor to why he called in over 100 bomb threats to Jewish institutions. Would the Trump supporter be given the benefit of the doubt? Would his explanation be taken at face value? The question answers itself. Maligned groups, whether “white trash” Trump supporters or Muslims — depending on the circumstance — seldom receive the benefit of the doubt. At various junctures, Trump supporters have certainly been unwilling to accept the validity of a “mitigating factor” excuse in the case of a Muslim who committed some criminal or terroristic act.
It’s entirely possible that the bomb-threat suspect both 1) suffered from a severe neurological condition that impaired his judgment, and 2) was entirely technically competent, and in fact highly tech-savvy. Whether this means that he ought to be afforded leniency for his alleged acts is another question, and goes to larger questions around intentionality and motivation. The more immediate point is: A person who was a rip-roaring Trump supporter would almost certainly have received nothing like the deference this suspect is receiving. Opprobrium would’ve been rained down mercilessly on him, and any appeals to neurological conditions would’ve been dismissed as contemptible excuse-making.
The reason the hypothetical Trump supporter would’ve been heavily castigated is because “Trump supporter” is a class of person that is reflexively disparaged in elite circles. The media, it should go without saying, is comprised almost entirely of elites. In other contexts, it’s perfectly feasible to imagine a Muslim who’d called in bomb threats, and cited a neurological condition as a contributing factor, not receiving anything remotely like the benefit of the doubt as has been afforded to the Israeli-American suspect. That’s because these mindless narratives, parroted unthinkingly by savvy media types without an ounce of self-reflection, are so often pure contrivances that say far more about the propagators of the narrative than about the phenomenon they are attempting to describe.
In an article recounting the technical mistakes that led to the apprehension of Kaydar, Kevin Poulsen writes at the Daily Beast:
Meanwhile, the bomb threats continued, coming in six separate waves. Jewish centers and day schools began evacuating with almost routine regularity. The threats were generally seen as evidence that anti-Semitic fringe groups were feeling emboldened by the election of Donald Trump. Then in March , a St. Louis man was arrested for a handful of copycat bomb threats he allegedly staged in an effort to frame an ex-girlfriend.
That’s…an understatement. The supposed “emboldenment” factor is precisely why the media narrative was so salient that it made its way through the media ecosystem and to the president. When additional information was garnered, the narrative was shown to be fundamentally false: The bomb threats were in no viable sense indicative of surging anti-semitism in the United States. Maybe people will eventually proffer other evidence to demonstrate that anti-semites really are on the march, but as of now the linchpin of their theory — so bombastically espoused just over a month ago — has disintegrated.
As usual, it must be reiterated: Skepticism of frenzied media narratives that lack sufficient empirical basis has nothing necessarily to do with “defending” Trump. If anything, Trump benefits from the media constantly discrediting itself by propagating narratives which soon after prove bogus. Trump has clearly-demonstrated tendencies that have already resulted in real harm. As such, it’s critical that his opposition be discerning and rational, rather than so blinkered that they’re willing to latch unthinkingly on to whatever the controversy du jour might be, with no eye toward the long-term consequences of their laziness. Whenever these narratives fall apart upon minimal inspection, as they so often do, Trump’s claim to be victimized by “fake news” purveyors gains credence, and his hand is strengthened.
The consequences of stoking baseless crazies go well beyond Trump. A few days after the alarmism over the bomb threats reached a fever pitch, Keith Ellison was defeated in his bid for chair of the Democratic National Committee. Though he’d built up a formidable support base and by most accounts was the “front-runner” for the preceding several months, his campaign was stalled in part by a billionaire-led whisper campaign that cast him as an anti-semite. Was there any necessary connection between that eventuality and the bomb-threat scare? It’s of course impossible to identify any kind of direct causality. But it’s not terribly shocking that bogus anti-semitism allegations were at that time especially salient.
To their credit, some media figures including Michelle Goldberg and Peter Beinart have conceded that the initial anti-semitism fervor was probably hasty, overwrought, and ill-considered. But they’re the extreme exceptions: Most people responsible for ginning all this up have evinced no self-criticism whatsoever, guaranteeing future panics and reinforcing the idea that there is no profession more accountability-free than American punditry.
If one raised questions about the veracity of this narrative at the time — again, hardly even a month ago — they were absolutely pilloried. I can attest to that personally: The level of vitriol I received for wondering whether the fervency of this story was warranted was probably the most intense I’ve ever encountered in years of commentating on contentious subjects online. The people screaming in February haven’t had much to say lately. And they’re probably correct to stay mum. The only other person accused of calling in bomb threats to Jewish centers is Juan Thompson, a deranged former journalist from The Intercept who was fired for fabricating stories.
Now does it seem wise to wait until basic identifying information is known before rushing to declare grand, politically convenient narratives?
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For those interested, I was on the Jimmy Dore show last week to discuss this subject in greater detail.
