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If you’ve ever shopped at a normal American supermarket, you’ve probably heard normal Americans having the following normal American conversation:
Normal American 1: Should we buy some bananas?
Normal American 2: We can’t afford bananas, because all of our money goes to help Israel commit genocide against innocent children in Gaza.
What’s that you say? No actual American talks like that, because Americans aren’t brainwashed zombies who believe everything is or should be about Palestine?
Nor are they antisemites who think Jews control American politics with their dirty money?
Tell that to Cenk Uygur.
Having recently been denied entry to the United Kingdom — even the pro-Palestinian Brits found his Jew-hatred excessive — the media gadfly turned to what he does best: defaming a certain Semitic minority.
Over the weekend, he released a new ad for Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed, in which two Americans who look like they were cast by the Tucker Carlson fan club are moping around their local grocery store and complaining they can’t afford anything — from proper healthcare to a dozen eggs for their kids — because the federal government funnels so much of their cash to Israel.
Get that, Michigan voters? The Jews are to blame for all of society’s ills.
The Jews are our misfortune.
It’s such vile, unapologetically Nazi drivel that it’s tempting to laugh it all off, especially as the bloated buffoon who produced this bit of schlock is best known for such moral nadirs as his warm interview with David Duke and his denial of the Armenian genocide.
But Uygur’s ad strikes a deeper chord.
It reminds Jewish Democrats that no matter how hard they try to fit in, their party now truly and deeply hates them.
It’s a timely reminder, too, for Jewish Michiganders.
Earlier this fall Dana Nessel, the state’s attorney general, urged her fellow Jews to sacrifice everything — even their safety and security — to defeat MAGA.
In a speech littered with comical errors — Nessel cited Queen Esther, of all people, as an example of someone who put universal values above her own people’s survival, an exact inversion of the biblical story — she argued that Jewish Democrats should prioritize issues like global warming and the economy and vote blue, the party’s increasingly belligerent and bigoted attitude towards Israel and Jews be damned.
The new ad is a perfect sequel to Nessel’s speech.
Elect El-Sayed, it promises, and we’ll make every single issue about the Jews.
Health care? We can’t have it because of Bibi.
Global warming? It’s the IDF’s fault.
The Wolverines losing to Indiana in overtime? Probably a Mossad plot.
This is how they think over in benighted third-world ratholes, like Uygur’s native Turkey.
Having long ago either murdered or violently expelled all their Jewish citizens, these largely Muslim countries still hold heated demonstrations and blame the Jews for their failing economies, their repressive societies and just about everything else.
And now, Cenk Uygur and Abdul El-Sayed are bringing this same antisemitic mind-virus to the American Midwest.
At least now we know.
Every Michigan voter contemplating supporting El-Sayed — or, for that matter, anyone voting Democrat come November — should take a moment and watch Uygur’s ad before casting their ballot.
It reminds us that the coming midterm elections won’t be about issues like the cost of living or even the war in Iran.
No, these elections are about what sort of country we want America to be: a nation that fosters rational debate, mutual respect and a fierce belief in American exceptionalism — or one that strives to imitate the world’s worst regimes and descend into a feverish nightmare of conspiracies and hate.
It’s not a very difficult choice to make.
Liel Leibovitz is editor at large for Tablet and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.