I read interesting remarks by Texas Senator Ted Cruz on antisemitism at the 45th Annual Night to Honor Israel, courtesy of a Volokh Conspiracy post by Josh Blackman. After noting the rise of antisemitism on the left beginning “about a decade ago,” Senator Cruz addressed the rise of antisemitism in some prominent quarters of the right, not subtly referencing without naming a certain pundit who descended from the top of his profession to having his brain hollowed out by Qatari propaganda in less than half-a-decade. Mr. Blackman’s post is worth reading, but I thought it was worth highlighting a few points from Senator Cruz:

• “If I pick up my phone and send out a tweet, if I say good morning, within minutes, I will have hundreds of blatantly antisemitic responses.”
  The social media commenters who accuse others of being “Israel first” are often far more consumed by thoughts of Israel and the Jews than people who support and defend the U.S.-Israel security alliance.
• “And I asked Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine how different American political history would’ve been if Rush Limbaugh had been an antisemite instead of a philosemite. We would have a fundamentally different country if Rush Limbaugh had spent years spreading poison.”
  The point here is not policy-centric, but instead the brain rot that comes with the sort of fixation on Israel and the Jews. The sort of brain rot that leads one to, as Mr. Cruz said elsewhere in his remarks, lead to having “three prominent voices on the right, publicly muse: Gosh, maybe Hitler wasn’t that bad a guy after all.” I would add the sort of brain rot that leads one to turn the murder of Charlie Kirk by a known assailant into a convoluted conspiracy theory implicating the distinguished Josh Hammer. Or to use examples from the left, the sort of brain rot that may lead well-funded individuals to protest New York City cancer hospitals and holiday parades.
• “[T]he United States supports Israel not because we are helping out a down-on-his-luck neighbor. We’re not engaged in a charity act. The United States supports Israel because it is unequivocally in the national security interest of the United States to support Israel.”
  I happen to agree with Mr. Cruz here, as does President Trump (much to the chagrin of some of his erstwhile supporters referenced above), and likeminded politicians and pundits would do well to focus on Israel’s strategic significance as a normal political actor to maintain support. But again, the issue Mr. Cruz is getting at is not to what extent the United States’ foreign policy priorities in the Middle East align with those of Israel. It is instead the effect that a negative fixation on Israel has on people’s minds, especially those who are swimming in Qatar cash.

I could say much more on this, but I will leave it here since my main purpose was to share Josh Blackman’s interesting write-up (be sure to read his own commentary after he re-prints excerpts from Mr. Cruz’s remarks). All the while, it is worth remembering that the figures Mr. Cruz focused his criticism on are often buttressed by opinion writers masquerading as journalists.