RSS
‘Is that really her?’ Liberal Jews say Elise Stefanik, hailed as a hero of the House antisemitism hearings, has baggage of her own
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Over the weekend, one Jewish Democratic congressman joined with Elise Stefanik, the number-three Republican in the House of Representatives, to demand accountability for antisemitism.
Another took to cable TV to say she had no credibility on the issue.
The gap between the two Jewish Democrats — Florida’s Jared Moskowitz and Maryland’s Jamie Raskin — illustrates a broader dilemma for liberal Jews. Moskowitz joined with Stefanik to demand that three elite universities fire their leaders for failing to protect Jews on campus, while Raskin told MSNBC that Stefanik is a leading enabler of antisemitism because she has echoed a conspiracy theory that has fueled antisemitic violence.
The split on Stefanik stems from a congressional hearing last week in which she asked the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania if “calling for the genocide of Jews” is against the universities’ codes of conduct. All three, weighing campus conduct codes against free speech imperatives, said the answer depended on the context. In the ensuing outrage, Penn President Liz Magill stepped down and pressure built on Harvard’s Claudine Gay to do the same.
For some, Stefanik emerged from the meeting as an unexpected champion of the fight against antisemitism. Moskowitz said in a Fox News interview that Stefanik “did a great job” questioning the university presidents and signed a letter demanding their resignations.
In the past, however, the upstate New York Republican has drawn condemnation for comments echoing the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” which in its original form claims that Jews are orchestrating the mass immigration of people of color into Western nations in order to replace their white populations. In 2021, Stefanik’s campaign posted on social media that Democrats plan to “overthrow our current electorate” by allowing undocumented immigrants to enter the country.
That statement by Stefanik has placed some Jews in an ambivalent spot: surprised to find themselves cheering her on.
“I felt very strange, kind of like rooting her on when she was asking her questions,” recalled Jewish philanthropist Lisa Greer. “I just thought ‘this is really amazing.’ And then I kept thinking, well, it looks like Elise Stefanik, but is that really her? I couldn’t believe it was the same person.”
Betsy Sheerr, a Democratic donor and a philanthropist who has given to multiple Jewish and pro-Israel causes, said she appreciated Stefanik for getting results.
“I think that she said what a lot of us were thinking when we listened to the testimony, to be honest, and as harsh as she was — she was really grilling them — I think a lot of us watched that and said you know, that’s absolutely right, this is unacceptable, this is ridiculous, this is cowardice,” Sheerr said from Israel, where she was on a solidarity tour. “So you know in that way I would have to begrudgingly admit that she shone a light and there were results that might not have happened without the directness of her grilling people.”
Raskin, speaking Sunday on MSNBC, said that Stefanik’s enabling of antisemitism in her party disqualified her from any role in combating antisemitism on campus.
“Where does Elise Stefanik get off lecturing anybody about antisemitism, when she’s the hugest supporter of Donald Trump, who traffics in antisemitism all the time?” Raskin said, according to an account in The Hill. He added that she “didn’t utter a peep of protest” when Trump dined a year ago with Kanye West, the rapper who embraced antisemitism, and Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier.
Stefanik responded on X that Trump was “the best friend Jewish people have had in the White House in modern times.” She listed a number of Trump’s Israel policies, such as moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, as well as his 2019 executive order on antisemitism.
Stefanik’s past actions did not deter the country’s leading antisemitism watchdog from sharing video of the congressional hearing. In 2022, after a mass shooting in Buffalo inspired by the “great replacement” theory, the Anti-Defamation League criticized Stefanik as on of its propagators, saying her campaign’s posts “strategically play on extremist rhetoric to stoke growing fears that white Americans are under attack and minorities seek to eject them.”
Yet its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, posted a video the day of the hearing that starred Stefanik. “These leaders’ lack of moral clarity in response to this line of questioning is shameful,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.
Greenblatt and Stefanik did not return requests for comment.
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said Stefanik could not disentangle antisemitism from the left, which Stefanik repudiates, from antisemitism on the right, which Stefanik ignores.
“It’s important to understand how deeply connected all of this antisemitism is, they are all rooted in conspiracy theories around Jewish control and power,” said Spitalnick, who played a leading role in successfully suing the neo-Nazi organizers of the deadly Charlottesville march, who chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
“By normalizing great replacement and related extremism, there’s this horseshoe effect where it inadvertently or intentionally fuels the idea that Jews have outsized power and control,” Spitalnick said. “And it all comes back in a way that is deeply dangerous not just for the Jewish community, but for everyone.”
What bothers Sheerr was her gut instinct that Stefanik would not walk back her own incendiary comments from 2021, or more robustly confront antisemitism in her own party. She noted that Stefanik started out as a moderate, and is now a loyalist of Trump — who also has peddled versions of the “great replacement” theory.
“She has really turned into one of the propagators of some of the vilest antisemitism,” Sheerr said. “She doesn’t call out anybody in her party, or anything, whether it’s for [peddling the] dual loyalty trope, or any of the other tropes, so I think she has done a service in a way but she’s a very dangerous member of Congress.”
Greer also wondered whether Stefanik would budge on her earlier views. “The best thing I can say about this is I wish in a perfect world she would have changed, she would say ‘I don’t believe that,’ and she would use that voice for good. That would be a wonderful thing,” she said. “But I have no sense that that’s going to happen.”
Others are more optimistic. Esther Panitch, a Democratic representative in the Georgia state legislature who has been outspoken in confronting anti-Israel sentiment in her own party, said she hoped that part of what spurred Stefanik to take the lead in confronting the university presidents was the lessons she learned from her flirtation with the great replacement theory.
“It seems she’s educated herself since the comments last year,” Panitch said in an interview. “I’m hopeful that’s what happened, and that she wasn’t trying to score a few points. I’m appreciative of what she did.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Kathy Manning, a Jewish North Carolina Democrat, accused Stefanik of acting in bad faith after she appeared to have copied sections of a letter written by Manning that criticized the college presidents. Manning posted two letters on Twitter, hers and the one Stefanik and Moskowitz authored. The first three paragraphs were identical and Manning said Stefanik had plagiarized her. “Rep. Stefanik is trying to get a sound bite and media hits,” she said.
Stefanik replied on X, formerly Twitter, that she made changes to the letter and then circulated it to Republican members. She accused Manning of “trying to do a hit piece to help panicked Democrats who are clearly on the wrong side of history protecting these university presidents.”
—
The post ‘Is that really her?’ Liberal Jews say Elise Stefanik, hailed as a hero of the House antisemitism hearings, has baggage of her own appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US
“Protect Migrants, Protect the Planet” rally in New York City, U.S., April 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Thousands of protesters rallied in Washington and other cities across the US on Saturday to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on deportations, government firings, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Outside the White House, protesters carried banners that read “Workers should have the power,” “No kingship,” “Stop arming Israel” and “Due process,” media footage showed.
Some demonstrators chanted in support of migrants whom the Trump administration has deported or has been attempting to deport while expressing solidarity with people fired by the federal government and with universities whose funding is threatened by Trump.
“As Trump and his administration mobilize the use of the US deportation machine, we are going to organize networks and systems of resistance to defend our neighbors,” a protester said in a rally at Lafayette Square near the White House.
Other protesters waved Palestinian flags while wearing keffiyeh scarves, chanting “free Palestine” and expressing solidarity with Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Some demonstrators carried symbols expressing support for Ukraine and urging Washington to be more decisive in opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Since his January inauguration, Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have gutted the federal government, firing over 200,000 workers and attempting to dismantle various agencies.
The administration has also detained scores of foreign students and threatened to stop federal funding to universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, climate initiatives and pro-Palestinian protests. Rights groups have condemned the policies.
Near the Washington Monument, banners from protesters read: “hate never made any nation great” and “equal rights for all does not mean less rights for you.”
Demonstrations were also held in New York City and Chicago, among dozens of other locations. It marked the second day of nationwide demonstrations since Trump took office.
The post Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
IDF: Mistakes Led to Opening Fire on Gazan Ambulances, Officer Dismissed
Khan Yunis. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli army has concluded its investigation into the tragic incident that occurred on the night of March 23, 2025 in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where Red Crescent rescue teams were targeted by Israeli gunfire, according to a press release by the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday.
The findings highlight a series of misjudgments and errors in judgement on the part of the IDF that led to this tragedy. According to the final report, the incident began when a force from the Golani Infantry Brigade’s Reconnaissance unit, engaged in anti-terrorist operations, spotted and neutralized what they identified as a Hamas vehicle. About an hour later, the same unit opened fire on vehicles “approaching rapidly and stopping near the troops, with passengers quickly disembarking.”
It was only after the shots were fired that they realized it was actually a fire truck and ambulances.
“Poor night visibility” is cited as a determining factor that led to this fatal mistake. The investigation specifies that “the deputy commander did not initially recognize the vehicles as ambulances. Only later, after approaching the vehicles and scanning them, was it discovered that these were indeed rescue teams.”
In a third incident that occurred fifteen minutes later, Israeli forces also fired upon a UN vehicle. The report characterizes this act as “due to operational errors in breach of regulations.”
These events strongly contrast with the initial report which portrayed the operation as a successful anti-terrorist action. The army now asserts that out of “fifteen Palestinians [who] were killed, six of whom were identified in a retrospective examination as Hamas terrorists.” However, the IDF stressed that there was no evidence of point-blank execution of ambulance workers.
“The forces also apprehended two pedestrians who raised suspicion, and released them subsequently,” the investigation found. “This indicates that the troops did not engage in indiscriminate fire but remained alert to respond to real threats identified by them.”
The investigation also reveals serious shortcomings in the military’s conduct after the ncident. The damaged vehicles were “crushed” on the spot, a decision that the military now acknowledges as “wrong.” Moreover, the first report submitted by the Reconnaissance Battalion’s deputy commander turned out to be “incomplete and inaccurate.”
In light of these conclusions, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has ordered sanctions: the commander of the 14th Brigade, a reserve unit, will receive a disciplinary note in his personal file, while the deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance unit will be relieved of his duties.
The investigation stressed that the dismissed commander is a “highly respected officer, whose military service and personal story reflect a spirit of combat, volunteerism, and great dedication.”
The conclusions of this investigation, which highlight severe failures in the chain of command and non-compliance with identification procedures, have been forwarded to the military prosecutor’s office for further review.
“The IDF regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians,” the IDF said. “The examination process also serves as part of an ongoing effort to learn from operational incidents and reduce the likelihood of similar occurrences in the future. Existing protocols have been clarified and reinforced – emphasizing the need for heightened caution when operating near rescue forces and medical personnel, even in high-intensity combat zones.”
The post IDF: Mistakes Led to Opening Fire on Gazan Ambulances, Officer Dismissed first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
UN Hid Details of Official’s Travel Funding Amid Alleged Pro-Hamas Financing
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – The United Nations Human Rights Office appears to have disseminated intentionally deceptive information in an attempt to cover up travel funding that pro-Hamas organizations provided to a UN official.
UN special rapporteur for Palestinian rights Francesca Albanese took a politically-charged trip to Australia and New Zealand in November 2023. The trip included a fundraiser for a Palestinian lobby group, participation in media events, as well as meetings with pro-Palestinian politicians and civil society members, and pushing New Zealand’s sovereign wealth fund to divest from Israel.
Albanese has been accused of antisemitism by the American, French and German governments, among other entities.
Now, the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, which praised Hamas terror mastermind Yahya Sinwar as “incredibly moving,” claimed publicly that it had “sponsored” Albanese’s visit, and Free Palestine Melbourne, the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network, and Palestinian Christians in Australia stated that they “supported” the trip. All four are lobbying groups.
i24NEWS asked various UN officials and entities for months whether pro-Hamas groups actually did fund the trip. Albanese repeatedly insisted the trip, estimated by the UN Watch NGO to cost around $22,000, was paid for by the UN, calling claims to the contrary “egregiously false.”
Finally, in July of last year, the UN Human Rights Office, acknowledging it was fully aware of documentation that pro-Hamas groups had said they sponsored or organized the trip, told i24NEWS that, “With respect to the Australia trip by the Special Rapporteur, her travel was funded by the UN.”
They ignored requests to provide any documentation showing that to be the case.
Since then, a six-person panel of Albanese’s peers, who have long attacked her accusers, was assigned the task of investigating a host of accusations against Albanese. In a letter written last month to UN Human Rights Council President Jurg Lauber by that panel, known as the UN Coordination Committee of Special Procedures, they finally acknowledged Albanese had taken “partial external funding for internal trips within Australia and New Zealand.”
i24NEWS asked the media offices for UN Human Rights and Special Procedures for clarity on what seemed to be contrary claims.
Like former US president Bill Clinton’s cagey testimony in the Lewinsky affair, when he famously remarked, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” for the UN Human Rights Office and Albanese, it apparently depends upon what the meaning of the word “to” is.
The Special Procedures office told i24NEWS: “With regard to the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Australia, her travel was funded by the United Nations regular budget. The Coordination Committee of Special Procedures assessed the allegations concerning partial external funding for internal travel (the bolding of the words is theirs) within Australia and New Zealand and concluded that there was no breach of the Code of Conduct. The Committee noted that it is common practice for conference organizers to cover the participation costs of mandate holders, and such arrangements do not constitute a violation of the established standards.”
With that, the UN finally conceded Albanese had in fact received external funding after all.
In follow-up conversations, it became clear: the UN was drawing a distinction between funding for travel TO a country, and funding for travel WITHIN a country – a bizarre distinction they failed to make for a year and a half, almost certainly to avoid discussing the topic of Hamas-supporting groups paying for a UN official’s anti-Israel business travel.
Even with all this, the UN Human Rights Office continues to ignore requests to clarify which group or groups funded this trip, and how much they contributed. Accused by i24NEWS of lying, the Special Procedures Media Office said it was a “regrettable and unfair mischaracterization,” though it still made no attempt to reconcile why the UN made no previous mention of external funding, or why the funding for Albanese’s trip “to” Australia should be counted differently from “external funding for internal travel.”
Asked during a press briefing whether UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would condemn UN spokespeople for intentionally misinforming the media and whether Guterres would support finally releasing the funding information surrounding the trip, Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesperson, said, “We support transparency in the activities of any official affiliated with United Nations.”
The post UN Hid Details of Official’s Travel Funding Amid Alleged Pro-Hamas Financing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login