Sad to say, America has been here before. Even if today’s media seems to have forgotten. America is awash in protests, many of them on university campuses, supporting the savagely anti-Semitic Hamas.
The media seems baffled. USA Today, for example, reports that:
“Many Jewish students, meanwhile, also said they feel intimidated by a proliferation of antisemitic social media posts and protests."
The mistake here? That would not be today’s media acknowledging and recalling that America has had a serious problem with decidedly open anti-Semitism in the past. That anti-Semitism being dutifully reported by the media of the day.
Hop in the time capsule and come back to the 1930’s. In Germany one Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Party are on the rise.
In May of 1933, with the direct blessing of Hitler’s “Deputy Fuhrer” Rudolf Hess, a German immigrant to America named Heinz Spanknobel was given the green light to bring the Nazi cause to America. It first appeared in the organizing of a group called the “Friends of the New Germany” and another called the “Free Society of Teutonia.” They were both quite boldly pro-Nazi.
But there was more coming to America. Much more.
In 1936, as Hitler was riding high as the new German Fuhrer, the German-American Bund came into being. It was headed by one Fritz Kuhn. Kuhn was a German who had fought for the Germans in World War I, immigrated to America afterwards and was granted American citizenship in 1934.
The Bund was anything but shy in making its adherence to the Nazi Party decidedly public. At one point, Kuhn traveled back to Germany to have his photo taken with Hitler. With an eye to the eventual Nazi conquering of America it imagined taking control of the country and dividing the then 48-states into 3 administrative divisions. Kuhn, who fancied himself as the American Hitler, set up a headquarters in New York City.
I recall the older members of my own family from Eastern Long Island shaking their heads in disbelief that the Bund had set up a training camp in nearby Yaphank, Long Island in the 1930’s. There were others around the country.
In 1939, decidedly reported in the media of the day, Kuhn held a mammoth pro-Nazi rally in…New York’s Madison Square Garden. Over 20,000 people - presumably most of them Americans - attended this rally. It was awash in American flags and Nazi paraphernalia and dominated by a mammoth portrait of George Washington, who was hailed as America’s first fascist.
The President of the United States of the day was, of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR was assailed at the rally as “Frank D. Rosenfeld”, with his “New Deal” program re-labeled the “Jew Deal.”
Was this rally protested? Yes. With the protestors being promptly attacked by what was labeled as “Bund storm troopers.”
Many years later a documentary would be made of this event, A Night at the Garden.
All of which is to say, history records the American people of the day were seriously appalled by all of this. They were informed by the media of the day.
And today?
There is Hamas, a savage and decidedly serious echo of the original Nazi’s. In the style of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” The Charter of Hamas pledges to have Israel “obliterated.”
It says:
'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.'
It goes on in this vein.
And notably, as NewsBusters Craig Bannister has noted in writing up our Brent Bozell’s recent interview with Mark Levin, Mark accurately points out that ‘the people who hate America hate the Jews.’ Bingo.
The point here is: where is today’s media in focusing on all of this and doing so over and over? More coverage has been given to the romance of singer Taylor Swift and her football player beau, Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce.
How many of these college protestors are aware of the Hamas Charter’s decided anti-Semitism? And if they are - and agree with it? Then what?
Then America has a problem on its hands -- a big one.
This moment in history, particularly American history, is proving to be a very serious one for the American media.
Will they step up? Will they publicize and educate the American about the reality behind Hamas?
Stay tuned.
