Many terrible ideas have run amok since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the ensuing Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

First, there’s what appears to be an ideological consensus — that Israel could never have oppressed the Palestinians over the years, that Israel’s policies have nothing to do with the terror and hatred against it, that all Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists support terrorism and Hamas and anti-Semitism, and that the killing of many thousands of innocent Palestinians is an acceptable or moral response to the deaths of one thousand innocent Israelis. None of this can be judged true after a little education (start here), nuanced thinking, and ethical reasoning. But this conservative framework is so powerful, many Republicans and Democrats sound indistinguishable right now. It is telling that not even Bernie Sanders, who often speaks up for Palestinian rights, will call for a ceasefire.

Second, there’s the response by some leftists, the refusal to condemn — or even celebration of — terror against civilians as a response to oppression. (Nor do they acknowledge the role or perils of Islamic fanaticism, focusing solely on those of a religious state explicitly for Jews.) Some socialists, communists, anarchists, and so on saw the attack as justified (though Israeli children hardly have a say over Israeli policies), possessing little interest in the philosophy of nonviolent resistance embraced by other leftists and the liberals (others may accept violence only against non-civilian targets). Like anywhere else on the political spectrum, there is indeed nastiness, hyperbole, callousness, narrow-mindedness, violence, and bigotry on the Left. This reaction put them all center stage and garnered special attention. But in a way, the Left simply joined the Right in the gutter. For instance, hate crimes against both Jews and Muslims/Arabs are out of control, some conservatives don’t care, vocally, about Palestinian corpses but gasped at the insensitive response of the other side to October 7, and so on.

Writers for center, liberal, and leftwing publications condemned the response. The Right was as overjoyed as it was aghast, issuing countless articles declaring “Democrats Have an Anti-Semitism Problem,” “Liberals Need a Reckoning with Anti-Semitism,” “Pro-Hamas Protesters Are the Movement, Not Outliers,” “The Left Owns Anti-Semitism, While the Right Stands With Israel,” and so forth. The Left, it seems, is infected with hatred of Jews, perhaps even defined by it, unlike the Right, which is loyal to Israel and therefore innocent.

But if you look at the recent research on the topic — putting aside the childish idea that opposition to Israeli policies or religious states is automatically disdain for Jewish people or their faith — you will notice that anti-Semitic attitudes are actually more prevalent on the Right than the Left, and that Jews themselves generally understand this. There is of course cause for concern over both “‘traditional’ antisemitism (long-standing anti-Jewish stereotypes) emanating from the political right” and “‘Israel-related’ antisemitism (blaming individual Jews for the actions of Israel) associated with the political left.” In the literature, these are referred to as the “old” and “new” prejudices. But not all problems are created equal.

A June 2022 study in Political Research Quarterly examined the views of conservatives and liberals, for instance how much they agreed with statements such as “Jews in the United States have too much power.” Anti-Semitism has long entailed the conspiracy theory that Jews control the media, the political sphere, law and business and banking, and so on. When you hear about a New World Order, cabals, globalists, and illuminati, this is frequently what is being referenced. The Jewish societal domination idea has led to horrific violence against the Jews, playing a major role in Nazi Germany, as I mentioned in a recent piece. The study found that people on the Right are much more likely to believe that Jews have too much power in the U.S. They are also more likely to believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than the United States — bigotry often involves the question of who is or isn’t a “real American.” Across all such questions asked, problematic “agreement is higher (2–3 times higher) on the far right than on the far left.” Such beliefs are not the norm, of course. Only about 6% of far Left respondents and about 17% of far Right respondents think Jews have too much power in society, for instance (see unprimed findings). But one side is clearly worse. And things get darker still if you look only at the data for young people, with about 5% of leftists in agreement vs. 45% of rightwingers.

This makes a good deal of sense. Conservatives are noticeably more likely to believe in hate-based conspiracy theories. Half of QAnon types believe Jews want to take over the world; these are closely tied conspiracy theories that share themes of secret puppet masters and global cabals.

Interestingly, another statement placed before respondents was “It is appropriate for opponents of Israel’s policies and actions to boycott Jewish American owned businesses in their communities.” Given that the Left is highly critical of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians, one might expect it to be more guilty here, agreeing more than the Right. Isn’t the Left into the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, launched by Palestinians in 2005? If the above question was old prejudice themed, this one is all new prejudice, perfect for trapping leftwingers. Well, about 10% of far Left respondents approved of boycotting Jewish American businesses over Israeli policies, but for the far Right it was about 22%. Just looking at younger people, it’s just over 10% versus just over 50%. The Left understands better that American Jews don’t really have anything to do with Israel or its policies — boycotting their businesses doesn’t make sense. It’s a punishment built on guilt by association; the American Right is twice as likely to accept punishing Jews for something they had no control over. (In a separate question having nothing to do with boycotts, the researchers found that “the far left is least likely to say that U.S. Jews should be held to account for Israel [only 4% agree]. In contrast, among the young far right 28% agree with the statement, seven times higher…”) Quite differently, the BDS movement is action against Israel, its government and economy. Boycotting and withdrawing investments from “all Israeli and international companies engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights” and encouraging sanctions against Israel by national governments and international bodies.

It of course must be emphasized that the scapegoating and bigotry and insane ideas that do exist on the Left are unacceptable, even if they are more limited. (The paper found, it’s worth noting, that leftists are more likely to demand Jews denounce Israel than to demand Muslims denounce Islamic states. For conservatives it was the opposite double standard.) Criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism can at times overlap, as documented in the study, which must be watched for closely. But in general, “people on the hard left hold significantly more anti-Israel views than other Americans, whereas those on the hard right are significantly more antisemitic,” to quote the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, highlighting the difference.

The Political Research Quarterly piece cited a couple studies conducted in other countries that had similar findings: “In a UK study, Staetsky (2020) finds higher rates of antisemitic views among British respondents who identify as far right. In Europe, Cohen (2018) finds lower support for Jewish immigration on the right than on the center or left.” But we will mostly focus on Americans.

A survey in summer 2023 from the Anti-Defamation League and Chicago’s NORC found anti-Semitism going hand-in-hand with enthusiasm for both leftwing and rightwing political violence. Violent leftists were 1.4 to 2 times more likely to be anti-Jewish; violent rightwingers were 2.8 to 3 times more likely to be anti-Jewish. Here again, the problem is serious everywhere but worse on the Right. (American political violence is consistently worse on the Right as well.)

Beyond conspiracy theories of world domination, beyond reactions to Israel’s policies against the Palestinians, other factors can breed disdain for Jews (though they tend to all mix toxically together). There were also racial and religious concerns highlighted by the survey: “Highly antisemitic Americans are twice as likely to support dangerous antidemocratic conspiracies, such as those declaring the U.S. is a ‘Christian nation,’ believing that white Christians are oppressed or that white people will have less rights than minorities in the future (i.e., the ‘Great Replacement’ idea).” One may recall the rightwingers chanting “Jews will not replace us” at the infamous Charlottesville rally of 2017. White nationalists, in addition to demanding whites run society, believe that the Jews and other people of color are trying to subjugate and wipe out white people. Racism is central to much anti-Semitism. And racism tends to be a bigger problem on the Right (this has been much more thoroughly researched in the social sciences; see Conservatives Are More Likely to be Racist). Race and faith are often intertwined, with the dominant former following the dominant latter, thus the need for not only white supremacy but white Christian supremacy. Today many Christians feel an affinity for followers of Judaism, due to the intimate relationship and history between the two faiths and of course, like others, the memory of the Holocaust. It is easy to forget the historical hostility, the Christian persecution of the devilish “Christ killers” over the centuries (see When Christianity Was as Violent as Islam). Religious animosity may yet explain some anti-Jewish sentiments. In this case, Judaism, like other faiths, is a threat to Christian supremacy. An early 2023 study in Social Science Quarterly found that Christian nationalism, a mostly rightwing phenomenon, correlates with anti-Semitism. The desire to dominate others is key to this connection. Beyond Christian nationalists, the authors note, Republicans in general “have the highest average level of antisemitism,” followed by Democrats (relatively closely compared to the evidence examined thus far) and then independents.

On that note, it must be said that some findings are more mixed. Research from 2018 concluded that from 1964 to 2016 strong Democrats and strong Republicans had essentially the same levels of warmth and agreeability towards Jews, with Democrats a hair better on the issue. If their attitudes were equally positive, by this odd metric a “warmth” of about “71 degrees” by 2016, this suggests equal coldness, equal anti-Jewish sentiment, of about 29 degrees. Things don’t get much deeper or detailed than that, leaving the meaning of the finding somewhat obscure. What are the actual beliefs of the people in those minorities? Do they vary in levels of hostility? Perhaps along partisan lines? At minimum, the finding supports the notion that liberals are less anti-Semitic than conservatives, even if it’s fractionally rather than significantly.

An April 2023 study in the UK found that individuals, Right or Left, who believed in authoritarianism, conspiracy theories, or smashing apart the social order were more likely to exhibit bigotry against Jews. These three beliefs were checked for associations with the old (“Judeophobic Antisemitism”) and new (“Antizionist Antisemitism”) prejudices. While old and new are not exclusive to a single side, extrapolations can be made based on aforementioned trends. Totalitarianism earned a .26 coefficient of correlation with the old prejudice, less than zero with the new. In other words, this suggests that totalitarianism on the Right is tied with disdain for Jews; leftwing authoritarianism may not have that problem. There was a .21 correlation between global conspiracy beliefs (“GCB”) and the old prejudice, versus .12 for the new. Meaning a closer connection between the prejudice associated with the Right and belief in conspiracy theories; leftwing conspiracy theorists can be problematic but not as often. However, there is a .29 correlation between those who want revolution against the social order (“Anti-Hierarchical Aggression”) and the new prejudice, compared to only a .21 for the old prejudice. This suggests leftists who support revolution are more bigoted against Jews than rightwingers who support revolution. As .29 is highest among all the numbers in this paragraph, it is so that, as a recent article put it, “Left-wing Anti-Hierarchical Aggression Emerges as the Strongest Predictor of Antisemitism in Recent Study.” But this could probably be labeled a mixed result, as the Right was worse on two of the three categories of belief. For their part, the authors wish to shift focus from Left and Right to those beliefs — in authoritarianism and absurdities and revolution — that they share.

Next, a scholar at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell wrote an article soon after the October 7 attack entitled “Antisemitism Has Moved from the Right to the Left in the United States,” outlining his recent, unpublished findings. The headline should not be misinterpreted to mean anti-Semitism no longer infects the Right, however, or is worse on the Left. Rather, it now simply infects both: “Our study, which will be published soon, found a startling new phenomenon: The ideology underlying antisemitism in the U.S. now encompasses both sides of the political spectrum.” Anti-Israel sentiment, the article notes, has increased anti-Semitism and imaginings by leftists that Jews are more loyal to Israel than the United States. None of this is surprising. We will have to wait until the study is published to know if it concludes one side is worse than the other, or how they compare (but if the Left was found to be worse, rather than simply worsening, that would probably have taken center stage in the piece). Overall, the study sounds valuable and novel because it links anti-Jewish incidents, as opposed to attitudes, to leftists. Even in 2020, American scholars could say “There is little evidence…of far-left violence being directed or inspired by antisemitism, something which…cannot be said for jihadist or far-right attacks,” but more research and increasing leftwing violence is changing this.

However, in Europe, a 2018 report indicated that victims perceived anti-Semitic harassment as coming from leftists 21% of the time, versus only 13% from conservatives. This is one of the few tools a conservative could use to argue things are worse on the Left, at least when it comes to violent acts (attitudes are a different question).

On that note, it is important to take Jewish perceptions and affiliations into account, even if this is a bit less scientific. American Jews are three times as likely to identify as liberal compared to conservative, and seven out of ten vote Democratic. Jewish Republicans are noticeably less likely to say anti-Semitism is increasing and more likely to say it’s decreasing, a bit strange if such bigotry is pouring in from the Left. Although conservative Jews do see more prejudice in the Democratic Party, the opposite of what most Jews conclude. Naturally, politics determines blame. Seven out of ten Jews believe there is much anti-Semitism in the Republican Party; under four in ten say the same about the Democratic Party. Jews who live in more liberal areas perceive less anti-Semitism than those in more conservative areas. More Jews trust Democrats to fight anti-Semitism, according to a poll after the October 7 attack. (Relatedly: Americans in general who identify as Democrats are typically twice as likely to say anti-Jewish sentiment is a problem in the United States, compared to Republicans. Who would you trust to fight it, those who don’t believe in it?) While the far Left is viewed as a serious threat, the far Right is judged to be far worse, a gap of 30-35 percentage points. True, this could change after recent events, given the response of some leftists. Concern over the new anti-Semitism has indeed grown in recent years. New research will let us know.

For now, weighing all the available evidence, the Right, with its crazed attempts to present the Left as anti-Semitic and itself as saintly, seems to be living in a fantasy, per usual. That upside-down world where you needn’t worry about the log in your own eye, for the Left has a smaller obstruction.

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