In his new book on extremism in America, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt quotes Voltaire to help explain the hatreds that threaten to destroy the country we love. "Anyone who can make you believe absurdities," wrote the French philosopher, "can make you commit atrocities." Saturday's hostage-taking at a Texas synagogue by a gunman calling for the release from prison of an antisemitic terrorist highlights the spread of absurdities and the upsurge in atrocities Greenblatt warns about in "It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable."

Malik Faisal Akram seized worshippers in a synagogue near the prison where Aafia Siddiqui, convicted of attempting to murder U.S. personnel in Afghanistan, is serving an 86-year sentence that includes a "terror enhancement." Educated at Brandeis University and MIT, Siddiqui is known as "Lady al-Qaida." A poster woman for vicious antisemitism, Siddiqui proclaimed post-conviction: "This is a verdict coming from Israel and not America. That's where the anger belongs." She had instructed the judge that she wanted Jews excluded from the jury "if they have a Zionist or Israeli background," adding "I have a feeling everyone here is them, subject to genetic testing."

Akram wasn't the only one who called for Siddiqui's release. The Islamic State group (ISIS) did so, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a powerful group regularly afforded kid-glove treatment by a media often intimidated or wearing rose-colored glasses, has been actively demanding it. Siddiqui's conviction, CAIR maintains, is "one of the greatest examples of injustice in U.S. history."

CAIR is among those culpable in what Greenblatt says is "a dangerous and dramatic surge in anti-Jewish hate." In November CAIR official Zahra Billoo attacked the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish communal organizations, "Hillel chapters on our campuses" and "Zionist synagogues" as "enemies." "I want us to pay attention to polite Zionists," Billoo told a gathering in a speech defended by CAIR. "The ones that say, 'Let's just break bread together.' They are not your friends." On Saturday night, as a brilliant team of law enforcement officers ended Akram's siege, CAIR frantically released a statement condemning the attack on the synagogue. But one could be forgiven for regarding this as an attempt to self-deodorize.

Greenblatt, an Obama administration alumnus, minces no words about the Left's share of guilt for the recent swell in antisemitism, pointing to the fact-challenged demonization that followed Israel's attempt to defend itself against Hamas rockets fired from Gaza last spring. "So-called activists around the world all too often deployed rhetorical violence against the Jewish state and its supporters, by equating Israel and Zionists with Nazis, calling for Israel to be eliminated and directing anti-Israel messaging at synagogues and other Jewish institutions," writes Greenblatt. "That rhetoric, in turn, helped trigger a frightening spike in real world violence against Jewish people in the United States and around the world."

On the far Right, the Justice Department's indictment of a collection of Trumpist insurrectionists for seditious conspiracy again illustrated the threat that a metastasizing witches' brew of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and associated vermin poses to America. The mob chants of "Jews will not replace us" during their march in Charlottesville and the "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt proudly worn by Capitol rioter Robert Keith Packer last Jan. 6 exemplify the fascist threat that binds the Proud Boys, QAnon and the other pillars of the "Make America Great Again" movement, which is more untethered than ever. "It's hard to underestimate the organizational boost that white supremacists, anti-immigrant groups, neo-Nazis, white nationalists and others received during the Trump years," writes Greenblatt, "when their ideology was tolerated and sometimes openly encouraged by officials at the highest levels."

Like antisemitism, vitriol and violence against Black people, Muslims, Asian Americans and members of the LGBT community are rising, not abating. The FBI reports a 25% increase in the number of hate crimes over the last five years, and given what goes unreported, that is almost surely the tip of the iceberg. "Over time," writes Greenblatt, "it becomes increasingly entrenched and normalized." And that, very plainly, has already happened here.

Jeff Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment, he is a longtime columnist for the Boston Herald, writing on politics, national security, human rights and the Mideast.

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