Jews have always been the most persecuted group in the United States on a relative basis, with an average Jew multiple times more likely to suffer a hate crime than an Arab or Muslim. The situation has only grown much worse since the genocidal jihadists of Gaza attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
In addition to the antisemitic violence, Jews have been subject to threats, intimidation and harassment. Whether at schools, synagogues or Jewish community centers, Jews have been confronted by mobs threatening them with genocide and mocking their trauma after the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust.
On July 15, 2023 these pages suggested new laws be instituted to protect the most beleaguered minority-minority, “Protecting Synagogues Like Abortion Clinics.” The most prominent idea was to enforce FACE which protects religious institutions in the same manner as abortion clinics, banning any protests within 100 feet of the entrance.
Fortunately, the idea was approved in Los Angeles in August. Unfortunately, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) found the idea of protecting synagogues outrageous.
In a letter to the city on September 16, 2024, CAIR-LA called the “bubble zone” around synagogues an affront to the right to protest, even though the right exists everywhere outside of the 100 foot perimeter. It said the protection of Jews “wastes taxpayer money,” and is meant to “serve a political agenda” of Jews.
CAIR not only wants to destroy the Jewish State, but it wants to block Jews from entering their synagogues and enjoying the free exercise of their protected rights.
The radical Islamist group, whose “leaders often traffic in openly antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric” is smearing Jews as taking unnecessary money from the public because they seek protection from jihadists calling for an Intifada pogrom while they try to enter Jewish houses of worship and Jewish community centers. The Islamic hate group is further attempting to libel Jews as controlling American politicians.
Leaders of CAIR have been publicly calling Jews “enemies” and blessing “mapping projects” highlighting the location of Jewish institutions for a few years. They have now begun taking their vitriol to the entrance of synagogues and the halls of government in a Diaspora Intifada, designed to threaten Jews outside of the Jewish holy land.
Muslims got the world to bless banning Jews from living in their holiest city of Jerusalem, and praying at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount. Blocking Jews’ basic human rights in the diaspora should be relatively easy.
The Muslim American community is a rapidly growing segment of the United States. It is projected to surpass the Jewish community by 2040 and be entrenched as the second largest religious group, estimated to become 8.1 million by 2050, according to Pew Research.
Like the Jewish community, a major consideration in the group’s focus is the Middle East. For Muslims, the region holds the major Islamic centers of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, while for Jews it is the Jewish holy land of Israel.
Beyond the sanctity of the land are co-religionists. There are 1.8 billion Muslims, with 50 Muslim-majority countries, with most being in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. This compares to just 15 million Jews globally and a single Jewish country, Israel.
Muslim population for Sunni and Shia (dark green), with Israel a dot in the middle
In 2024, several Muslim countries and territories surrounding Israel are waging a war to destroy the Jewish State, and the United States has backed Israel in defending itself. This Iranian Axis-Israel war is weighing heavily on how Muslim Americans are thinking about the 2024 U.S. presidential elections.
The community has long been outraged by former President Trump’s anti-Islamic comments and angered by his strongly pro-Israel actions during his term from 2017 through 2020. Muslims were upset about his cutting funds to Palestinians, placing sanctions on Iran, and normalizing Israel into the Arab Middle East with the Abraham Accords.
But Muslim Americans are also disgusted with the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel fighting against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. They cannot fathom voting for Harris in the upcoming presidential election, even as they view her more favorably than Trump.
Resigned to the fact that both candidates are not anti-Zionist, a significant part of the community has decided to send a message, and hopefully play spoiler in the upcoming presidential election, in the hope of drawing attention to their position to influence future elections.
The Turkish news site Andalu posted a talk featuring Islamic preachers and members of CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations. The discussion called for Muslim Americans to vote for third party candidates like Jill Stein and Cornel West. While they have no chance of winning, the aim is to make the two dominant political parties start to cater to their demands, especially in halting support for the Jewish State.
According to polls released by CAIR, the Muslim vote in Michigan and Wisconsin – two important swing states to securing the presidency – should have an enormous turnout for Stein. Their hope is to show the Democratic party that had they changed policy course on Israel, those votes could have been theirs. The Muslim American community would rather lose the election to Trump whom they despise, to influence the future direction of the Democratic Party, which is already infiltrated by members of the “Squad.”
Donald Trump may win a larger percentage of the Jewish vote than any Republican nominee over the past cycles which might make him keep pro-Israel positions, but Muslims have a soft back-up hope that Trump will credit the Muslim community for abandoning Harris to help him secure the presidency.
While the vast majority of Americans don’t focus on foreign affairs as the primary concern in elections beyond the border crisis, the Muslim and Jewish communities are putting the Hamas-Israel war at the top of their list, and each group may tip the scales to Donald Trump for very different reasons. Jews will focus on continuing to support Israel in its war against genocidal jihadists, while Muslims will argue that the U.S. should abandon Israel and foreign policy and funding altogether, to let the Iranian axis devour the sole Jewish State.
The Jewish community is taking a very near-term view of the American presidential election, concerned about the terrible spike in antisemitism in the U.S. and the ring of evil attacking Israel right now. The Muslim community is playing the long game, and is willing to simply place a marker on the table in 2024 that they are an emerging force to be reckoned with.
Jews are small in number with a single state and are beset by existential fear, so are pushing for immediate action. Meanwhile, the Muslim world has no existential worries, and can focus on the ultimate prize in which their numbers and power overwhelm American Jews, just as they encircle the Jewish State. In the near-term, they will work to infiltrate the educational system and overtake the Democratic Party to breed a new generation of socialist-jihadists who will normalize anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
It’s called the Insidious Jihad in America and is over five years old now. Imagine where the country will be in five more years.
Imagine an employee of the New York Yankees donning a division rival Boston Red Sox shirt while serving customers at a game. Not only would members of the Yankees be angered but fans coming to the baseball game would be shocked by employees of the organization rooting against the team.
It sounds absurd. The Yankees (or any team faced with a similar situation) would enforce a dress code prohibiting such activity. They would terminate any employee who refuses to abide by the regulation.
Jewish institutions are facing an even worse situation, as employees seek to wear Palestinian kaffiyehs or pins at their place or work, in the middle of the Palestinian Arabs genocidal war against Jews in Israel.
New York City’s 92nd Street Y issued a policy banning patron-facing employees from wearing expressions of “politics or social issues.” According to some reports, a number of employees resigned and one was fired for repeatedly breaking from the policy after wearing Palestinian paraphernalia.
92NY is a “proudly Jewish organization…[which] enthusiastically welcomes and reaches out to people of all ages, races, faiths and backgrounds while embracing Jewish values like learning and self-improvement, the importance of family, the joy of life, and giving back to our wonderfully diverse and growing community, both locally and around the world.” All are welcome to attend their events but must abide by the rules at the Jewish institution.
An employee of the Yankees would not expect to be allowed to wear the jersey of an opposing team while at work. To do so would be a deliberate attempt to antagonize their employer.
Which is precisely the goal of extremists who wish to not only normalize jihadi violence in the shadow of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, but to mock the victims to their friends and family.
The socialist-jihadi mob is actively provoking Jews and mocking their fear and suffering inside Jewish institutions in the center of the largest diaspora community. The mob does so with the knowledge that far-left allies in the district attorney’s office and Senate will shield them from any ramifications.
Facebook’s parent company Meta announced that it will permit the phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” on its platform despite protests from groups that it is a call for the mass genocide of Israeli Jews. Meta’s Oversight Board sided with pro-Palestinian groups which argued that it is simply an expression for equal rights for all Arabs in the region.
The decision stemmed from three situations in which the phrase was used on the platform, and concluded that “the three pieces of content contain contextual signs of solidarity with Palestinians – but no language calling for violence or exclusion. They also do not glorify or even refer to Hamas, an organization designated as dangerous by Meta,” suggesting that only when the phrase is used connecting to calls for violence will the language be banned from the platform. Or stated differently, the expression itself is benign, and it is only the calls for violence that will cause censorship, as “the phrase’s use by this terrorist group [Hamas] with explicit violent eliminationist intent and actions, does not make the phrase inherently hateful or violent – considering the variety of people using the phrase in different ways,” the board said.
In short, Meta decided to side with pro-Palestinians over Zionists and Jews who view the phrase as an open call for the genocide of Jews.
It is interesting to compare that phrase to the “N-word” which is also used a wide variety of contexts.
Many Black musicians use the word in their songs. The Black comedian Dave Chappelle uses the N-word repeatedly in his shows, both for Black people or White people. These artists are seemingly given a pass as they themselves use the derogatory term. Chappelle mocked such sensitivity openly and defiantly.
Yet the NAACP voted to ban the word in 2007 and issued a follow-up statement in 2014 which clarified the reasons to block the term, including by artists:
“the stigma of this word embodies and invokes painful memories and inhumane ill-will; and countless individuals including NAACP freedom fighters, have lost their lives due to the beliefs perpetuated by the use of this word.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVEDthat the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People shall not condone, award, or engage any person that uses the N-word in any capacity, or in any artistic endeavor that does not allude to the historical context of the word, or that does not highlight the prejudicial nature of the word; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVEDthat the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People implement the following actions to reinforce its ban on the use of the N-word issued in 2007 and bolster education and awareness about the offensiveness of the word across racial and generational lines: Make the ban reinforcement a top civil rights priority for all units; and urge every youth unit in consultation with their corresponding adult branch develop a plan of action for implementation. Plan must include internal branch affirmation, public awareness, community outreach and a reporting process. In places where no active youth unit exists, the adult unit would be held to the same said requirement.”
While the corresponding derogatory term for Jews, the K-word, might be a better comparable to the N-word for Black people, it is not the antisemitic phrase that has often accompanied the slaughter of Jews.
“Free Palestine” is shouted at Jews on streets, painted on their synagogues and while they dine in restaurants. It is the placard hoisted at rallies in front of Jewish institutions and Hillels on college campuses. It is a taunt and threat, accompanied by the slogan “by any means necessary,” including burning Jews alive, as Palestinians brutality did en masse on October 7, 2023, to wild Arab support.
On October 26, 2023, not long after the barbaric attack on Israel, the Anti Defamation League (ADL), issued a statement that clearly tied the “Free Palestine” phrase to antisemitism:
“‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ is an antisemitic slogan commonly featured in anti-Israel campaigns and chanted at demonstrations.
This rallying cry has long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, which seek Israel’s destruction through violent means. It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state. It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.
Usage of this phrase has the effect of making members of the Jewish and pro-Israel community feel unsafe and ostracized. It is important to note that demanding justice for Palestinians, or calling for a Palestinian state, should not mean, as this hateful phrase posits, denying the right of the State of Israel to exist.”
The Jewish victims of attack do not ask for “context” when people use the “Free Palestine” phrase; they know that more Jews “lost their lives due to the beliefs perpetuated by the use of this word” than any time since the Holocaust.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on HR 883 in April 2024 to label the phrase as antisemitic by a wide 377 to 44 margin. It specifically stated that “the slogan, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, is outrightly antisemitic and must be strongly condemned;” and “this slogan perpetuates hatred against the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” Notable anti-Israel squad members Bowman, Bush, Dingell, Barbara Lee, AOC, Omar, Pocan, Schakowsky, Tlaib, Velazquez and Waters voted against the resolution.
Society has so internalized the Black community’s objection to a hateful word that it cannot be uttered nor written. Yet calling for the genocide of Jews has been given a passing grade at universities, and a green light on social media.
ACTION ITEM
Contact ADL and your member of Congress to pressure the group to demand Meta change its policy regarding the genocidal phrase “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.” Mark the phrase with the same opprobrium as the N-word.
Democrats have been trying to make a case that Republicans are attempting to make Israel a wedge issue in American politics. Pro-Israel Democrats say that it is harmful to the Jewish State to destroy the broad bipartisan support of the only liberal democracy in the Middle East enjoys. Republicans agree and lament that Democrats are addressing the wrong audience.
The charge by centrist Democrats’ about Republicans is designed to be a red herring to cover the infiltration of the anti-Zionist alt-left into the Democratic Party.
Justice Democrats has been growing its influence in Democratic circles, supporting anti-Zionist non-White people in Congress like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) does the same.
In an attempt to distinguish between their rabid anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the far-left argues that there are good Jews and bad Jews. They embrace the anti-Israel “good Jews” like those from Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, as if doing so proves they don’t hate Jews. Only those “bad Jews” who support Jews living in the Jewish holy land are targeted for vitriol and harassment.
CAIR, the Council for American-Islamic Relations makes a similar argument. Zahra Billoo made a speech which specifically called out “polite Zionists… which are not your friends” because she argued that any Jew who supports Israel is inherently anti-Muslim. To be an ally in the Islamic world requires that Jews denounce Zionism.
These and similar organizations and countries have been attempting to brand Zionism a form of racism, as so declared in 1975 at the United Nations. They have pushed a narrative in schools and society that everyone actively needs to be anti-racist and consequently anti-Zionist.
Branding Israel as an “apartheid” and “genocidal” country started well before the October 7 massacre by Palestinians. The effort was to not only make Israel a pariah nation devoid of allies, but to convince Jews to abandon their brethren and heritage.
The jihadi-socialist alliance is not only looking to destroy the Jewish State, but to pit Jew against Jew regarding Israel. It is yet another vile form of antisemitism.
Many political experts have offered that there is no way to defeat Hamas’ ideology though military means. Israel’s war effort will only be successful in defeating the military capabilities of the political-terrorist group, much like allied forces defeated Nazi Germany in World War II, and US and other allies defeated al-Qaeda and ISIS in the 21st century. The ultimate driver of Hamas, to destroy the Jewish State, will continue to fuel another generation of Palestinian radicals.
What goes unmentioned is that this “ideology” is rooted in religious fanaticism, much like al Qaeda and ISIS, among others. This potentially makes the ideology eternal, so any notion of defeating the ideology would be nonsensical.
Consider that there are only 900 Christian Arabs in Gaza out of a population of roughly 2.2 million, a paltry 0.04% of the region, with the rest being Muslim. The strip is deeply religious under a strictly Islamic religious regime enforcing sharia law. Hamas is attempting to use its Gaza foothold as the launching pad for a caliphate with the help of other Islamic regimes including Iran and Qatar, to consume Israel next door.
Last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas came clean about his fanatical Islamic and antisemitic and anti-US beliefs in front of the Turkish parliament as he declared “we implement sharia law: victory or martyrdom!” and “America is the plague and the plague is America.”
The Israel-Arab war is a religious war for Palestinian Arabs and the Islamic Republic of Iran, not a territorial war. It is therefore not surprising that Jews in the diaspora are being attacked by antisemites who berate Jews as murderers, racists and robbers who are “colonizers,” not indigenous to the land of Israel. It is an unhinged rant of fanatics who celebrate the slaughter of unbelievers unmoored in reality, not a reasoned opinion capable of being addressed.
Columbia University has a long history laying a welcome mat for antisemites.
After the vile “encampments” at the university and threats to Jewish students, the Jewish community held an event on May 31, 2024 to discuss Jew hatred and what to do about it. Three Columbia deans attended the event and mocked the pain expressed. They were suspended and later resigned after their private texts became public.
The Times headline wrote about “deans who sent insulting texts.” But the texts weren’t simply offhand “insulting”; they were antisemitic.
In the sub-header, the Times was more clear that the messages “disparaged Jewish panelists” but was silent on the fact that this was a panel of Jews specifically discussing antisemitism at the university. A casual reader could have concluded that maybe the deans posted something about a select number of Jews who happened to be discussing something generic. The deans didn’t just mock Jewish panelists but the entire notion that there is any antisemitism.
The article started to make the point more clear but not sufficiently.
But then the article went off the rails.
It said that the episode was “deeply embarrassing to the administration.” How is the university the subject here? Jews are the point of concern, not the administration.
And the administration was not embarrassed. It has systematically allowed Jews to be insulted, intimidated and harassed for years.
The notion that the current wave of antisemitism is just a “powerful wave of pro-Palestinian activism,” is a disgraceful whitewash by the Times of jihadi Jew-hatred manifest in the encampments. To label people who celebrate Hamas’ massive butchering of over one thousand people “a symbol of the Palestinian resistance” is to platform antisemitic propaganda.
The New York Times and Columbia University, both headquartered in New York City – home to the largest Jewish diaspora community in the world – cannot fathom antisemitism even when they are forced to focus on it. It is a feature of numb antisemitism, an ingrained belief that Jews are privileged and powerful.
The liberal elite have victims of preference and they are not the most persecuted minority-minority. The Jews are sacrificial lambs to be offered on the altar of intersectionality according to the demands of the socialist-jihadi mob. A small price for the alt-left to gain the audience of the growing global south, shrouded in smug self-righteousness in a toxic empathy swamp.
It’s called “Globalize the Intifada,” and being mainstreamed daily under your nose.
Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) was a famous documentary photographer who captured images of what turned out to be the end of a thriving Eastern European Jewish community. His photographs and story are captured in film and several books, which serve as witness to Jewish life as it existed before being extinguished in the Holocaust.
Vishniac did not try to capture only old Jews or poor shtetl Jews, although his images do bring stories like Fiddler On The Roof to the real world. He captured all kinds of Jews who lived full lives in cities and towns, without the foreboding knowledge that death was coming as individuals and as a collective.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) captured Russian villages and Jews in his paintings in the decades before Vishniac. Jews had been relegated to live in the Pale of Settlement on the western ends of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years, and Chagall’s early paintings were somewhat peaceful despite the various pogroms which decimated much of the Jewish community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Vitebsk (1917)Russian Village (1929)
On October 7, 2023, roughly 3,500 people came to southern Israel near the Gaza Strip to celebrate life and music. The Tribe of Nova music festival was an annual all night electronic music experience which drew mostly secular people from around the world. They celebrated with friends and family near Jewish communities whose residents strove for coexistence with their neighbors in Jew-free Gaza nearby. No one knew that Palestinian terrorists were going to descend on the party and the kibbutzes to slaughter and torture as many people as the Arabs could find.
Nova festival party goers
In eastern Europe and Russia, Jews lived in confined areas at the edges of where host countries decided Jews may live. The Jews lived the best they could under the restrictions, until political powers decided that they didn’t want Jews anymore. The militaries either slaughtered the Jews or expelled them.
Vishniac in Berlin after WWIIChagall’s White Crucifixion (1938)
While Jews originated and always lived in the land of Israel, modern Zionism sought to give Jews autonomy in their homeland again. While the reestablished Jewish State was formed in 1948, the country fought many wars against neighbors which found a Jewish State an insult to Islam.
Believing that the Israeli army kept them secure, Israelis danced the night away on October 7, just three kilometers from where the Palestinian group Hamas governed the terrorist enclave of Gaza, with a well-publicized plan seeking the death of Jews and destruction of Israel. Thousands of Gazan terrorists invaded Israel and butchered and slaughtered more Jews on a single day than any day since the Holocaust.
Fleeing NovaDestruction at Nova
Jews danced and lived on the edges, on narrow slices of the world where they were informed they were entitled to live. In the end, whether from their own antisemitic governments or neighboring genocidal armies, they were targeted for annihilation.
The United States Now
What are the lessons for the largest diaspora community the world has ever known, with nearly 6 million Jews accounting for two-thirds of the global diaspora? Or other western democracies like Canada, the United Kingdom and France?
Jews have achieved financial success and attained leading positions at many global companies. They have built schools and hospitals, industries and factories. They have no restrictions on professions or where they can live, how they can pray or what they eat.
Yet the feeling for Jews post-October 7 feels tense. Unsafe.
The presidents of America’s leading universities came to Washington, D.C. and said that they would not combat Jew-hatred on their campuses. The best they could offer were chaperones to escort Jews to their classes or dorms as they confront open and approved intimidation and harassment.
Wayne State UniversityBirmingham, UK
Many American politicians in liberal cities are openly saying that they will not protect Jews. Jews living in the suburbs of New York and St. Louis fought aggressively to oust antisemitic politicians (Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush), with the defeated members of Congress then threatening to come after them.
Are these the new edges in the West in 2024, the straight line on campuses from dorms to classrooms, as well as suburban towns outside of liberal cities? Are universities and cities generally becoming off limits to Jews? Are Jews being told to simply accept that they can live happy lives on the edges?
Jews know history. They carry it in their DNA. They know that any restrictions form the contours of confinement. There is no safety in ghettos, only marked addresses for future annihilation.
Marker for location of massacre of the Jews of Lisbon on April 19, 1506
President George Washington penned a letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, RI on August 18, 1790 which said “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
Yet Jews are feeling a deep erosion of that sentiment, that they are part-and-parcel of the fabric of the great country, as leaders of both academia and government assist persecution and inflame bigotry against the most persecuted people in the world.
Excluding Jews in any form, place or time is against the foundational principles of the United States. It cannot be accepted for America to be America.
American Jews will not fight for a slice of land on the edges of society in which to live. They have seen the destruction of fellow Jews when they stay politely in the alloted corners. Whether traditional or secular. Whether in Israel or the diaspora.
Marker of location where 200+ Jews in Vienna who had refused to convert to Christianity were burned at the stake in 1421.
American Jews will fight for all of America and to continue to be integral part of the great nation, unafraid.
American Jews hold fast to Washington’s Newport letter, as he signed “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”
Alas, what make antisemites everlastingly happy is harassing Jews until they experience the pogroms and expulsions of Fiddler On The Roof today.
The pro-Palestinian movement in the United States has gone full jihadi, targeting JEWISH institutions, including synagogues. The instigators are not only anti-Israel but anti-Jews.
Squirrel Hill Synagogue, PA location of worst mass murder of Jews in the US, defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti, July 2024Mercer Island, WA synagogue defaced, November 2023
Jewish houses of worship are not Israeli. They have nothing to do with the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists, but were targeted by pro-Palestinian antisemites.
Synagogue in Los Angeles, CA spray painted with “Free Palestine” and “F*ck Israel” in May 2020Calgary, Canada synagogue defaced July 2024
The Palestineism movement specifically calls for finding and confronting Zionist organizations, which it has determined is every Jewish organization unless it specifically repudiates Zionism. They have created a “Mapping Project” to enable people to locate and harrass Jewish Americans, Jewish organizations, Jewish schools and synagogues.
The United States Holocaust Museum has written extensively about the Nazis use of intimidation as a tool to weaponize fear and “rationalize war, persecution, and genocide.” The “Free Palestine” graffiti on houses of worship – especially in the shadow of the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023 by Palestinian Arabs – is a deliberate targeting of Jews, a marker for exclusion and persecution.
The Department of Justice needs to act against these hate crimes. The department knows that “Hate crimes have a devastating effect beyond the harm inflicted on any one victim. They reverberate through families, communities, and the entire nation, as others fear that they too could be threatened, attacked, or forced from their homes, because of what they look like, who they are, where they worship, whom they love, or whether they have a disability.”
Section 241 of the civil rights code makes it a felony to intimidate people to hinder the free exercise to a basic privilege like worship.
Yet in Pennsylvania, home to the largest mass murder of Jews in the United States and scene of recent graffiti on a synagogue, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Josh Shapiro did not flag that the perpetrators of the antisemitic intimidation should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They only spoke of the symbolism of the vandalism and graffiti.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) made it an offense to use intimidation to prevent a person from going to a synagogue. A Tennessee woman was just sentenced to three years and five months for intimidating people from using an abortion clinic. Such action should be enforced quickly and broadly for vandalizing a synagogue, with long sentences when the language calls to eradicate the Jewish State.
Words of condemnation are appreciated but American Jewry needs and demands that politicians and law enforcement enforce laws to protect Jews from the onslaught of toxic antisemitic Palestineism that is sweeping the nation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024. He spoke of the strong ties between Israel and the U.S. and their mutual enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. He thanked Presidents Biden and Trump for being reliable allies, helping Israel fight its enemies and forge peace with those willing to coexist with the Jewish State.
The speech was addressed to a bipartisan audience of past, present and future Democratic and Republican presidents and members of Congress, and reflected the bipartisan and bicameral invitation to Netanyahu.
Yet only one party attended en masse. Only one party rose to their feet again and again during Netanyahu’s remarks. Only one party closed ranks with a strong ally in the middle of a horrific war.
The Republicans.
There was also one party which stood divided about Israel. One party who disrespected and disparaged the Israeli leader. One party whose shrill anti-Israel voices drowned out those who support Israel.
The Democrats.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was angry that Netanyahu came to address Congress as “bad faith efforts by Republicans to further politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship.” In truth, the bipartisan invitation did not politicize the relationship but laid bare the pro-Hamas and anti-Israel wing of woke politicians and Americans.
Nadler, a Jewish Congressman, insulted Netanyahu as “the worst leader in Jewish history.” He spent his time at Netanyahu’s speech reading from a book highly critical of Netanyahu that he brandished about like garlic before a vampire.
Rep. Jerry Nadler read highly critical biography of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while the prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who had invited the Israeli Prime Minister, refused to shake the leader’s hand. Schumer had sharply criticized Netanyahu four months earlier in Congress, calling for new elections and meddling in foreign affairs of a democratic ally.
There were some Democrats who were supportive of Netanyahu and the Jewish State. Reps. Torres, Gottheimer, Hernandez, Manning, Franel and Wasserman-Schultz were clear about being proud Zionists, voicing full bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, calling for bringing home the hostages held by Palestinian Arabs, and blasting the antisemitic protests on the streets of Washington, D.C.
Yet few people took notice of their comments which were viewed only a few thousand times on X.
The anti-Israel and anti-Netanyahu politicians were much more popular.
Many far-left members of Congress boycotted the speech. According to Axios, roughly half of the Democrats in the Senate and the House did not attend the address, including Vice President Kamala Harris who chose to attend another event, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.), former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). That’s over two times the number of Democrats who boycotted Netanyahu in 2015.
When the generals of wokedom Sanders and AOC posted about their feelings of “war criminal” Netanyahu and skipping the speech, MILLIONS of followers took in the bile. Even Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) who has already lost his seat in Congress for the next term, had nearly five times the number of views as Rep. Ritchie Torres.
The streets of Washington were filled with woke antisemites. Some held placards calling for the “final solution” in a reference to Hitler’s plan for a genocide of Jews. Some painted on governmental monuments that “Hamas is comin.”
The left-wing media joined the fray. The New Republic published an article about how horrible it would be for Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, to choose Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), an Orthodox Jew. Such a move would “ruin Democratic Unity” and “fracture the party” because Shapiro is a Zionist. Jacobin wants Harris to pick 82-year old Bernie Sanders as her Vice President, enjoying his vilification of Israel and capitalism.
According to a Gallup poll in March 2024, the favorability rating of Americans about Israel dropped below 60% for the first time since March 2004. It was mostly driven by young people 18-34 whose favorability ratings for Israel dropped in the last year to 38% from 64%, while their opinions barely budged for the Palestinian Authority. As it relates to the war, Democrats and the youth were the only segments to have a higher favorability rating for Palestinians more than Israelis.
By every measure, in just 75 years, Israel built a successful and thriving liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Despite its success, the ongoing war against Gazan terrorists have sapped the support of the young and most left-leaning Americans, according to another poll by Gallup in late March 2024. Whether justified or not and fought minimizing harm to civilians or not, the anti-war movement amongst the young is not just drawing support from the Jewish State, but accelerating a movement to attack it and Zionists globally.
The messages of turning on Israel and Zionists continue to gain momentum, even among progressive Jews. Little known members of Congress like Rep. Sarah Jacobs’ (D-CA), not coincidentally the youngest Jew in Congress, post about boycotting Netanyahu got one million views on X, a platform more often used by young people.
Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress did not “politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship.” It exposed the deep rot of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in a growing segment of the Democratic Party, much like the Congressional hearings about antisemitism at universities shed light on the noxious Jew-hatred metastasizing in woke establishments.
ACTION ITEM
Contact Rep. Jerry Nadler and tell him he’s a vile and childish putz for insulting a leader of an American ally who was invited by a bipartisan and bicameral Congress. Call (202) 225-5635
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