US President Joe Biden spoke out against antisemitism after officials said that a swastika had been found carved into the wall of a US State Department elevator.
"Let me be clear: Antisemitism has no place in the State Department, in my administration, or anywhere in the world. It's up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor and stand up to bigotry wherever we find it," Biden tweeted late on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, a State Department spokeswoman told reporters the swastika had been discovered on Monday and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had addressed the incident with department staff.
The swastika, a symbol of Nazi hate, has been removed and the incident is under investigation, Blinken said in a statement on Twitter.
"As this painfully reminds us, antisemitism isn't a relic of the past. We must be relentless in standing up and rejecting antisemitism," he said, likening antisemitism to other forms of hate including racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.
"None of these ideologies should have a home in our workplace or our nation."
The State Department is working on the nomination of a special envoy to combat antisemitism, spokeswoman Jalina Porter told reporters. The Palestinians are not satisfied with the new government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett because it hasn’t made any serious changes in the Israeli policy towards settlements, PLO official Ashraf al-Ajrami said on Wednesday.
The Palestinians also do not expect the Israeli government to resume the stalled peace process with Israel any time in the near future, al-Ajrami, who previously served as the Palestinian Authority minister for prisoners’ affairs, told The Jerusalem Post.
US President Joe Biden spoke out against antisemitism after officials said that a swastika had been found carved into the wall of a US State Department elevator.
"Let me be clear: Antisemitism has no place in the State Department, in my administration, or anywhere in the world. It's up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor and stand up to bigotry wherever we find it," Biden tweeted on Tuesday.
Let me be clear: Anti-Semitism has no place in the State Department, in my Administration, or anywhere in the world. It’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor and stand up to bigotry wherever we find it. https://t.co/RCkwArRjL2
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 28, 2021
MEANWHILE, a group of four Republican members of Congress: Rep. Cawthorn. Rep. Biggs, Rep. Buck, and Rep. Johnson, introduced a resolution “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives against the malignant and metastasizing ideology of antisemitism.”
According to the resolution, the House of Representatives “reaffirms the First Amendment right to practice religion in public; its commitment to reject those who attack others based on ethnicity and race, and the right of Israel to exist and defend her citizens.”
It also “reaffirms its commitment to the necessity of law enforcement protecting Jewish citizens from attacks here in the United States; the designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization and rocket attacks against civilians as a terrorist tactic; and upholds all Federal and local programs dedicated to eliminating antisemitism.”