On the brave, sort of – Pfeffer in Haaretz:

‘Six weeks ago when the saga of Kanye West and his antisemitic statements erupted, some people explained it away as the by-product of psychological problems. Poor Ye just needs a good therapist.
Then there were those who tried to put West’s outbursts in the context of an African-American discourse à la the Hebrew Israelite groups (the so-called Black Hebrews) or Louis Farrakhan. Yes, there was quite a bit of that in Ye’s rants, but there was also a raft of more traditional elements that should have made it clear that it wasn’t just that.’

(…)

‘But this really shouldn’t be about Trump and his dying delusions of a return to office. And while the media's obsession with everything Trump does and says is perhaps understandable, the fact that he hosted open antisemites in his tawdry manor is hardly remarkable. Much more telling are the people who lionized him for so long – including even Benjamin Netanyahu – as a great friend of the Jews, the King Cyrus of our age. These people are now suddenly criticizing him, but they’re not that important either.’

(…)

‘And just like Trump, Musk isn’t an overt antisemite, but he's antisemitic-adjacent – not just in his welcoming West back to the Twitter platform he now owns, or in his tweet this week calling Jewish-American whistleblower and former U.S. Army officer Alexander Vindman a “puppet and puppeteer.” There's a wider sense.
More than anyone right now, Musk is pushing the notion that many dark truths are being hidden from the public, truths that only the brave dare utter: Question authority, don’t accept what the mainstream media tells you, be prepared to believe anything.
It sounds democratic but it’s a cover for conspiracy theories. A couple of years ago the vogue was COVID-denial. Now it’s the return of antisemitism, which excites the trolling freedom fighters led by Musk.’

(…)

‘The “Ye 2024” campaign will probably implode before long, and it's unlikely to take off as an actual political platform. But it's already causing major damage and is calling for a drastic change in the way we confront the hatred of Jews. Simply calling antisemites out for what they are won’t work when they’re perfectly happy to be called that.’

Read the article here.

There are the people who think they are brave by going against the mainstream without realizing that they are enabling the far-right, even when they think about themselves as far-left. And also, without realizing that the going against the mainstream just because you can is so mainstream.

Since the word ‘racist’ became a badge of honor in certain circles, it was only a matter of time before the same thing would happen with the word ‘antisemite’.