We are facing a vile and too often violent antisemitism pandemic today. It comes from multiple corners: white supremacists and black supremacists. The far Left and the far Right. The congressional squad and Joe Biden appointees with long records of demonizing Jews and harming the Jewish state.
Sports figures and Internet influencers. Students for Justice in Palestine, the Nation of Islam and radical gunmen attacking synagogue worshipers and kosher groceries, and street thugs attacking pregnant Jewish women pushing baby strollers. All targeting Jews and the Jewish homeland of Israel.
There was recently an appropriate outcry, across the board, when philosemite president Donald Trump briefly met with antisemite Kanye West, who brought along white supremacist Holocaust denier Jew-hater Nick Fuentes. My own organization demanded that Trump condemn West and Fuentes, and that Trump should not rest on his philosemitic laurels.
The appropriate ubiquitous outcry was despite the fact that Trump has an extraordinary record helping Israel and the Jewish people.
But why is there no outcry about the far worse actions of other officials and other former presidents who cavort with and even honor and praise vicious antisemites? And no outcry when they outrageously appoint Jew-haters to high positions where these antisemites can do horrible permanent damage that causes increased antisemitism and outright danger to Israel, to Jews at home and abroad?
Perhaps the biggest current danger is the absence of an outcry regarding President Biden honoring and appointing numerous people, hostile to the Jewish state, to powerful positions where they are undermining Israel’s security and sovereignty at every opportunity and mainstreaming antisemitism.
To give just a few of many examples: Biden appointee Hady Amr said he “was inspired by the Palestinian intifada” (the terror wars in which Palestinian Arab terrorists murdered or maimed 10,000 Jews); falsely accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing”; called for a deal with Hamas; and worked as an anti-Israel group’s national coordinator.
Treat other anti-semites in US government the same as Trump
Where is the outcry about Biden repeatedly elevating this Jew-hater Hady Amr to a new top position dealing with Israel and Palestinian Arabs?
And where is the outcry about Biden appointing antisemitic BDS activist Maher Bitar as senior National Security Council intelligence director, after Bitar taught a seminar on “how to demonize Israel” and served on the executive committee of the antisemitic hate group Students for Justice in Palestine, which harasses and torments Jewish students on college campuses?
Where is the outcry about Biden appointing Tamara Cofman Wittes to USAID’s Middle East arm, when Wittes passed off the Palestinian Authority’s despicable “pay-to-slay” payments (payments of hundreds of millions of dollars per year to Arab terrorists to murder Jews and Americans) as a welfare program?
Where is the outcry about Biden appointing Robert Malley as special envoy to Iran, despite Malley’s longstanding demands to uproot Jews from their homes; promotion of Hamas; opposition to Iran sanctions that curbed anti-Jewish and anti-American terror; and promotion of Iran’s nuclear program, which threatens to wipe out millions of Jews and others?
And where is the outcry about President Biden failing to publicly condemn overt powerful congressional Jew-haters Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Betty McCollum, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Ayanna Pressley and others?
And why is there silence about Biden actually praising Jew-hater Tlaib in May 2021, saying, “Rashida, I want to say to you that I admire your intellect, I admire your passion and I admire your concern for so many people... You are a fighter, and God thank you for being a fighter”?
Where is the outrage about Secretary of State Antony Blinken honoring overt Jew-hating Israel-basher Rep. Omar, by bringing her to the World Cup in Qatar? And why is there silence about Blinken’s plan to speak at Israel-bashing J Street?
Where was the outrage when Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared on the February 2019 Rolling Stone magazine cover together with antisemites Omar, Tlaib and AOC; and refused to remove these bigots from their committees?
Why is there no outcry about former president Barack Obama’s infamous 2005 photo with vicious antisemite Louis Farrakhan, standing together and smiling from ear to ear? Or about Obama helping organize Farrakhan’s major march on Washington? Or about former president Bill Clinton sharing a stage with Farrakhan and smilingly shaking Farrakhan’s hand at Aretha Franklin’s funeral in 2018?
This double standard is unconscionable. A “free pass” should not be given to certain politicians who associate with and elevate antisemites. We need to combat and condemn all forms of antisemitism – Left and Right.
As president Trump declared in his February 5, 2019 State of the Union address: “We must never ignore the vile poison of antisemitism or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.”
The writer is the president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).