Hasan Piker does not particularly interest us. America has never lacked people willing to say ugly things about Jews.
What interests us — and increasingly alarms us — is why so many people who should know better keep inviting him into the room.
Piker, the enormously popular progressive streamer, has called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” defended Hamas, said he would choose Hamas over Israel “every single time,” and repeatedly traffics in rhetoric that should place someone beyond respectable political conversation.
Recently, he went further. Piker warned that if American Jews continue identifying themselves with Israel, “eventually someone’s going to come around and take action” against American Jews. Israel, he predicted, will become regarded as “Jewish ISIS,” and Jews who associate themselves with it are “making antisemitism worse.”
Let us be precise. Piker did not explicitly advocate violence. He did something more insidious: He warned Jews that violence may be coming and suggested that, if it does, they will have helped bring it upon themselves.
Think about that. American Jews are being told that their safety depends upon changing their beliefs. Distance yourselves from Israel. Suppress an important part of your Jewish identity. Otherwise someone may attack you — and don’t forget that you were warned.
That is not concern for Jews. It is intimidation. And it comes at a moment when American Jews do not need lectures about the possibility of violence. Synagogues require armed security. Jewish institutions operate behind barricades. Jews have been assaulted on streets and campuses. Israeli Embassy employees were murdered outside Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum last year. A man allegedly shouting “Free Palestine” attacked a gathering in Boulder supporting Israeli hostages.
Against that background, telling Jews that their attachment to Israel is “making antisemitism worse” is not merely offensive. It is grotesque. Yet the larger scandal is that Piker remains politically respectable.
Abdul El-Sayed, now Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the United States Senate, campaigned with him despite protests from Jewish Democrats. College Democrats of America featured him at its national convention. Progressive candidates seek his audience and political influence.
Enough.
Imagine a popular right-wing influencer warning Black Americans that their political behavior was inviting racist attacks. Imagine him telling Muslims that their identification with Muslim causes was making Islamophobia worse. Imagine a Republican Senate candidate campaigning beside him afterward.
Would Democrats debate the nuances? Would anyone explain that he had millions of followers whom Republicans needed to reach? Of course not. Nor should they.
Antisemitism becomes dangerous not merely when antisemites speak. They always will. It becomes dangerous when institutions that know better decide that the speaker is nevertheless useful — when hatred becomes negotiable because the person spreading it delivers votes, followers or applause. That is how the unacceptable becomes controversial, the controversial becomes tolerated, and the tolerated eventually becomes normal.
No one needs to silence Hasan Piker. He has every right to speak. But Democratic candidates and organizations have an equally important right — and obligation — to say: not with us.
Piker crossed the line long ago. The frightening question now is whether, when the hatred is directed at Jews, an increasingly influential part of progressive politics believes there is any line left to cross.
