Oh, my. The Jewish Light’s editorial page with its knee-jerk liberalism is always good for a laugh. But when it veers from inadvertent humor to overt mendacity, it does seem time to respond. Such was the case with a recent screed regarding the Charlottesville incident (Aug. 16 editorial, “Words Fall Far Short”). 

The Jewish Light may not choose to remember, but the American Civil Liberties Union — back when liberals had intellectual integrity — addressed this once.

In 1977, a group of neo-Nazis announced their intention to march through Skokie, Ill., where one out of every six Jewish residents had survived the Holocaust or was directly related to a survivor. The Chicago suburb denied permission for the neo-Nazis’ gathering, but the ACLU accepted the case and won, upholding neo-Nazis’ right to free speech. 

The march happened, the Chicago police did their jobs and prevented any violence, it ended and we all went back to work. Just the way it should be.

As your hysterical editorial seems to have held the president responsible for the recent difficulty, one wonders whether President Jimmy Carter in 1977 is to be blamed. Or is he rather to be praised?  

In contrast, the Charlottesville police and Virginia State Police, at the behest of their self-acknowledged leftist mayor and liberal-activist governor, did not enforce the law and forcibly take down the criminal thugs who attacked the legal, permit-approved marchers. Arrests, prosecution, harsh penalties and no bail would be an appropriate follow-up. But that, of course, would require men of honor and a commitment to justice in positions of authority. 

Had the “counter-protesters” of the alt-left not gone to Charlottesville with the avowed purpose of illegal agitation and assault (after informing the press of their intentions), there would have been no story. The fellow travelers of the national media would not have bothered to send anyone to such an insignificant event as a few nutcases protesting. The legally marching white supremacists would have vented their collective anger and gone home. There would have been no riot.

But the crazed anarchists of antifa (shorthand for anti-fascists, the far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events), abetted by the thugs of Black Lives Matter, were bused in, masked, wearing knee and elbow protectors, and armed with baseball bats and canisters of cement. Ready for war and protected by helmets, they engaged in street violence with the legal marchers. 

As in Weimar, Germany, we saw hand-to-hand combat by those flying the communist red flag. Even liberal Jake Tapper of CNN noted that antifa attacked two photojournalists after they stated they were press. Both required extensive medical attention for concussions and wounds needing stitches. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times tweeted in the midst of the battle, “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being quietly led out of the park.” 

The people who witnessed the event stated that the armed antifa group was standing on the sidelines looking for a fight. The first blow was clearly struck by them as a can filled with cement, a favorite weapon of these criminals, which obviously has to be prepared in advance, was thrown at the permit-approved marchers. Under such provocation, a forceful response in self-defense is understandable. It is true that many of the marchers represented constitutionally protected hate groups. But how are they at fault when the battle was started by others who came with the avowed purpose of fomenting violence?

Some things are self-evident to all but the hopelessly biased. Had the marchers come to precipitate violence, why would they have gone to the trouble and tedium of applying for a permit? Yet they did so twice, in fact, the second time supported by the local ACLU, as they were initially denied one. The hooligans of Black Lives Matter and anarchists of the alt-left needed none. Why bother? 

The mayhem of Portland, Berkeley, Ferguson, Sacramento and other cities had already proved that fellow leftists would guarantee their rioting would go unpunished. It is also self-evident, as the president noted in his eloquent press conference before the barking dogs of the press, that there were decent and honorable people there who simply held differing views … on both sides. 

There is nothing wrong with legally protesting the removal of the statue of a genuinely noble man. And all who desired to do so, as the president noted, were not members of constitutionally protected but — again, self-evidently —  odious groups. 

It is also clear that the president, with Jewish children and grandchildren, is not ethnically or racially biased, as are, for example, many of his critics on the left and members of the previous administration.  

Dr. Ben Carson, the highly-respected HUD secretary and neurosurgeon, commented on this episode and agreed with the president by reminding us that that hate and bigotry is prevalent “on all sides.” The biased and downright misleading editorial in last week’s Jewish Light is proof of this. 

And that, unfortunately, is not humorous at all.