Democrats are not seeing eye to eye on whether the party has a problem with antisemitism ahead of the November general election.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s easy to call out people with Tiki torches saying \u2018Jews will not replace us\u2019 or the former president saying \u2018very fine people on both sides,\u2019 Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said in a statement to Fox News Digital, referencing a rally with White supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018However, when Democrats look inward and see \u2018go back to Poland\u2019 or \u2018kill the Zionists,\u2019 they pretend the antisemitic rhetoric on the left isn\u2019t happening, or they are silent,\u2019 he added. \u2018And as it turns out, the left and the right have something in common.\u2019<\/p>\n
As the war between Israel and terrorist group Hamas has gone on, initially spurred by the latter\u2019s surprise attack on innocent civilians on Oct. 7, acts of antisemitism have been observed more often in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Anti-Defamation League reported that U.S. antisemitic assaults in the three months following the October attack in Israel shot up, surpassing the totals for entire years in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ADL said 3,291 assaults happened between Oct. 7 and Jan. 7. In 2022, 3,697 assaults occurred over the course of the entire year. The totals for each of the last 10 years, except for 2022, were less than that three-month period following the beginning of Israel\u2019s war with Hamas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This month, anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations rapidly expanded at top-tier universities, with a Gaza solidarity encampment that is persisting at Columbia University inspiring many of its higher education counterparts to take over their respective campuses, disrupt school activity, and intimidate Jewish students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A rabbi at the New York school ultimately reccommended Columbia Jewish students return home to ensure their own safety.<\/p>\n
While many Republican lawmakers have been quick to call out the demonstrations, Democrats have more often been quiet, and they have also been measured in their responses and calls for action from schools and police.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some Democrats have even supported the encampment at Columbia, such as Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who recently visited students involved in the protest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has additionally discouraged the use of police enforcement against such demonstrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rachel Rosen, the chief communications officer for the group Democratic Majority for Israel, told Fox News Digital, \u2018Antisemitism is emanating from the far left and the far right.\u2019<\/p>\n
However, she said, \u2018President Biden has forcefully condemned antisemitism and defended Israel.\u2019<\/p>\n
She added, \u2018We\u2019re still waiting for GOP leaders to condemn Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2019s \u2018Jewish space lasers,\u2019 the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina\u2019s Holocaust denialism and Donald Trump\u2019s disgraceful trafficking in antisemitic tropes and dining with an actual Nazi.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Donald Trump regularly demeans Jewish Americans, dines with White nationalists, and said Adolf Hitler \u2018did some good things,\u201d agreed Eric Schultz, senior advisor to former President Barack Obama. \u2018Most Jewish voters support President Biden and that is because he has shown steadfast support for the Jewish people, especially with antisemitism on the rise.\u2019<\/p>\n
The White House didn\u2019t provide comment on whether the Democratic Party has a problem with antisemitism to Fox News Digital in time for publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., who has emerged as a vocal advocate of Israel, was quick to say the party does have such a problem: \u2018The far left, clearly. And that seems to manifest itself especially on the college campuses,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Fetterman, the Democrats can grapple with the issue \u2018by calling it out,\u2019 which he noted he has been doing. However, he said he wasn\u2019t going to give his colleagues advice on how to do so.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m not aware of it,\u2019 Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said when asked by Fox News Digital if the Democrats had an issue with antisemitism within the party. \u2018But if there is, I\u2019d be concerned.\u2019<\/p>\n
Tester is campaigning for re-election in Montana, which is poised to be one of the most competitive races in the country, rating as a \u2018Toss Up\u2019 by non-partisan political handicapper the Cook Political Report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital that he doesn\u2019t believe there is an issue among Democrats with antisemitism. \u2018I don\u2019t believe there are antisemites among Democrats in the United States Congress,\u2019 he said, noting that he couldn\u2019t possibly know the beliefs of every individual Democratic voter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018People often say things that may be misconstrued,\u2019 he explained. \u2018And sometimes they say things that are offensive. But I don\u2019t believe deep in their hearts people in the United States Congress hate Jews.\u2019<\/p>\n
Several Democrats, prompted as to whether there is specifically an issue on the left, avoided answering, instead condemning antisemitism in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018As the co-founder of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, I\u2019ve been working across the aisle to fight the scourge of antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head, regardless of political party or ideology,\u2019 Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said in a statement to Fox News Digital. Rosen is the only Jewish woman in the Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., similarly emphasized in a statement, \u2018Antisemitism has no place in our country and I condemn this hate in no uncertain terms.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The women each face their own competitive re-election battles in Nevada and Wisconsin in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., didn\u2019t answer whether there was a problem within the party, but noted he felt badly for students across the country who are having school and graduation ceremonies potentially interrupted amid the hysteria of the demonstrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The question was also sidestepped by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., whose office directed Fox News Digital instead to recent legislation he introduced to address antisemitism on college campuses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., pointed to his statement denouncing \u2018hateful, antisemitic harassment and intimidation\u2019 at Columbia, without commenting on the party\u2019s potential antisemitism concern.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robert Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University explained that \u2018The problem for the Democrats \u2013\u00a0Biden in particular, is not antisemitism.\u2019<\/p>\n
Instead, the issue they face is \u2018how to deal with Israel and how to deal with the protests, especially in terms of the general disruption to society for which Biden and the Democrats may be held accountable, ultimately, in the 2024 election.\u2019<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., did not provide comment in time for publication. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio and Bob Casey, D-Penn., who face tough re-election contests in November, also didn\u2019t provide comments.<\/p>\n
Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Mark Warner, and Reps. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., were additionally reached out to by Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
Democrats are not seeing eye to eye on whether the party has a problem with antisemitism ahead of the November general election.\u00a0 \u2018It\u2019s easy to call out people with Tiki torches saying \u2018Jews will not replace us\u2019 or the former president saying \u2018very fine people on both sides,\u2019 Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said in a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}