Steven Spielberg delivered a commencement address at Harvard. Much of it consisted of the usual "believe in yourself" material. Then it pivoted to politics. Very predictable politics.
"As a kid, I was bullied -- for being Jewish. This was upsetting, but compared to what my parents and grandparents had faced, it felt tame. Because we truly believed that anti-Semitism was fading. And we were wrong. Over the last two years, nearly 20,000 Jews have left Europe to find higher ground. And earlier this year, I was at the Israeli embassy when President Obama stated the sad truth. He said: ‘We must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it."
And then Spielberg goes on to deny it, first by universalizing it as the general problem of bigotry, and then somehow overlooking the fact that it's Muslim anti-Semitism that is driving the Jews out of Europe and instead pivoting to Islamophobia.
"Now, I don’t have to tell a crowd of Red Sox fans that we are wired for tribalism. But beyond rooting for the home team, tribalism has a much darker side. Instinctively and maybe even genetically, we divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ So the burning question must be: How do all of us together find the ‘we?’ How do we do that? There’s still so much work to be done, and sometimes I feel the work hasn’t even begun. And it’s not just anti-Semitism that’s surging -- Islamophobia’s on the rise, too. Because there’s no difference between anyone who is discriminated against, whether it’s the Muslims, or the Jews, or minorities on the border states, or the LGBT community -- it is all big one hate."
So now anti-Semitism is just like rooting for the Red Sox. Also opposing illegal immigration. But then the real problem turns out to be "Islamophobia". But you can't have both. You can empathize with the plight of the victims or that of the perpetrators. You cannot do both at the same time. Especially while pretending that fear of Muslims has nothing to do with expressions of violent bigotry by Muslims.