It was an ambush, a trap well set for prey who blithely walked into it. These babes in the woods were the presidents of three of the nation’s most elite universities who lacked the moxie of a freshman poli-sci student. How else to explain that they would go so totally unprepared politically and intellectually into a congressional hearing led by hostile interrogators looking to “own the libs” – and not incidentally to humiliate elite intellectuals – by scoring gotcha points?
Whether they should be fired – one already quit – or keep their high paying prestigious jobs is debatable. They’ve already lost much. The ones who definitely should be fired are the overpriced white-shoe lawyers from WilmerHale who prepped the trio.
In reality, the witnesses were on Capitol Hill as mere props in a game of gotcha by a Republican leadership more interested in messaging than legislating. That meant producing campaign sound bites and distracting attention from the growing ranks of white nationalists, xenophobes, and antisemites at the highest levels of the once-GOP.
That was the case on December 5 when the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sat before the House Education Committee. Republicans wanted to capitalize on the rising tide of antisemitism across the country, especially on liberal colleges like theirs. It was the latest in a long-standing GOP campaign to portray their party as the true friend of Israel and the Democrats as unfaithful and unreliable at best.
Foreign policy was merely a facade. This was aimed at the coming elections and raising campaign money for themselves and their party by equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), a Trump acolyte who has been called a MAGA provocateur, asked each a version of “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?”
All responded, “It depends on context.” The noise you heard was each shooting herself in the foot with both barrels.
Stefanik educated them. “It does not depend on the context. The answer is yes,” she told them, calling their responses “unacceptable” and “pathetic.” She’s right.
Some say the drama was Stefanik’s payback for her alma mater, Harvard, which had removed her from its advisory committee because of her role as an election denier in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Maybe she saw this as her audition to be Donald Trump’s running mate next year.
Republicans pushed through a flawed, politicized resolution
AS I said, this hearing had nothing to do with legislation. That was evident when Republicans pushed through a deeply flawed, politicized resolution condemning antisemitism. Again, this wasn’t about fighting bigotry; it was another attempt to score political points by trying to paint liberals and Democrats as anti-Israel.
The gotcha line was branding criticism of the Israeli government as anti-Zionism and calling it antisemitism. It dates back to the Gingrich strategy of claiming Republicans love Israel more because Democrats refuse to embrace right-wing Republican positions supportive, in recent years, of the Netanyahu government on issues like settlements, Palestinians, and the two-state solution.
H. Res. 894 “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government might like that, but what does it mean? The terminology deliberately oversimplifies a wide range of views about the Jewish state and its policies. What is crystal clear is that the Republicans, goaded by the Netanyahu government and many American Jewish groups, have largely succeeded in equating all criticism of Israeli policy as anti-Zionism and therefore automatically antisemitic.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Jewish Democrat from Chicago, said the resolution “does absolutely nothing to counter antisemitism.” She, like most of her Jewish colleagues, felt compelled to vote against the resolution because it so broadly defined antisemitism that it “could deem any criticism of the Israel government as antisemitic.” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the only member of Congress with a yeshiva education, said “Jewish anti-Zionism” is “expressly not antisemitic.”
If House Republicans weren’t preoccupied with scoring political points, they could have followed the Senate’s example, which unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution condemning antisemitism.
Only one Republican lawmaker voted against the House resolution, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, but for a very different reason. Congress, in his view, is more interested in “Zionism” than “American patriotism.” Nikki Haley called him “the most anti-Israel Republican.” The Republican Jewish Coalition called him “a disgrace.” The White House called his tweet “virulent antisemitism.”
Republicans love Israel, but not so much about Jews
REPUBLICANS MAY love Israel, but Jews not so much. Former Rep. Liz Cheney said, “The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism.”
All the “We love Israel more” resolutions won’t change the ugly truth of the GOP’s antisemitism problem (the Democrats have their own, but the group is smaller, less influential, and more political than racial), and it goes right to the top.
That became abundantly clear again this week when the twice impeached and four-times indicted former president was spewing venom that reminded historians of Adolf Hitler. Having already branded his domestic enemies “vermin,” he told a campaign rally that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” It sounded straight out of Mein Kampf, where Hitler warned Germans, “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”
Historian Timothy Naftali called that “the language that dictators use to instill fear.” Trump has been poisoning the blood of American politics with his hatred, bigotry, calls for retribution, lies, threats, and bullying for years. Next, he declared, he plans to be a dictator on his first day (who can stop there?) so he can close the borders and launch the largest deportation operation in history. Journalist Clyde Haberman wondered on X whether that includes Trump’s Slovenian-born wife and their son and her parents.
What’s really needed is a denazification of the GOP and its leading presidential candidate.
An admirer of strongmen and autocrats, Trump this week praised Hungary’s Viktor Orban, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and touted a virtual endorsement by Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
He also has echoed Stalin’s line, calling the press “the enemy of the people,” and telling campaign audiences he plans to crack down on the media.
Almost as reprehensible are those Republicans who timidly dismiss such conduct and language as just Trump being Trump, fearful of incurring the wrath of their vengeful leader.
Trump’s troops spreading the message of hate include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the notorious discoverer of the Jewish space lasers who wants the GOP to be the Christian Nationalist Party. There’s also Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, whose own family has called him an antisemite; Florida’s Matt Gaetz, who led the overthrow of Kevin McCarthy and has been featured at white nationalist rallies; and TV talker Tucker Carlson, the promoter of the great replacement theory which seeks to bar immigrants who aren’t good white, euro-stock Christians like them; Tucker’s also considered a veep wannabe.
Antisemitic tropes have permeated the campaigns, social media and message of many Republican candidates; and with leftist criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza growing, look for an uptick accusing Democrats of being anti-Israel.
After last week’s success in humiliating the presidents of three elite colleges, Education Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) announced plans to hold more hearings on antisemitism and pro-Palestinian rallies on the campuses. Want to bet it will only be at liberal campuses?