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Biden plan to combat antisemitism demands reforms across the executive branch and beyond
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden unveiled a multifaceted and broad strategy to combat antisemitism in the United States that reaches from basketball courts to farming communities, from college campuses to police departments.
“We must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America,” Biden said in a prerecorded video. “Silence is complicity.”
The 60-page document and its list of more than 100 recommendations stretches across the government, requiring reforms in virtually every sector of the executive branch within a year. It was formulated after consultations with over a thousand experts, and covers a range of tactics, from increased security funding to a range of educational efforts.
The plan has been in the works since December, and the White House has consulted with large Jewish organizations throughout the process. The finished document embraces proposals that large Jewish organizations have long advocated, as well as initiatives that pleasantly surprised Jewish organizational leaders, most of whom praised it upon its release.
Among the proposals that Jewish leaders have called for were recommendations to streamline reporting of hate crimes across local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, which will enable the government to accurately assess the breadth of hate crimes. The proposal also recommends that Congress double the funds available to nonprofits for security measures, from $180 million to $360 million.
One proposal that, if enacted, could be particularly far-reaching — and controversial — is a call for Congress to pass “fundamental reforms” to a provision that shields social media platforms from liability for the content users post on their sites. The plan says social media companies should have a “zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms.”
In addition, the plan calls for action in partnership with a range of government agencies and private entities. It says the government will work with professional sports leagues to educate fans about antisemitism and hold athletes accountable for it, following instances of antisemitic speech by figures such as NBA star Kyrie Irving or NFL player DeSean Jackson.
The government will also partner with rural museums and libraries to educate their visitors about Jewish heritage and antisemitism. And the plan includes actions to be taken by a number of cabinet departments, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the USDA.
“It’s really producing a whole-of-government approach that stretches from what you might consider the obvious things like more [security] grants and more resources for the Justice Department and the FBI,” said Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union. “But it stretches all the way across things that the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration can do with regard to educating about antisemitism, that the National Endowment of the Humanities and the President’s Council on Sports and Fitness can do with regard to the institutions that they deal with.”
An array of Jewish organizations from the left to the center-right echoed those sentiments in welcoming the plan with enthusiasm, marking a change from recent weeks in which they had been split over how the plan should define antisemitism. Still, a handful of right-wing groups blasted the strategy, saying that its chosen definition of antisemitism diluted the term.
Despite the relatively united front, there are elements of the strategy that may stoke broader controversy: Among a broad array of partner groups named in the plan is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose harsh criticism of Israel has led to relations with centrist Jewish organizations that are fraught at best. The call to place limits on social media platforms may also upset free speech advocates.
Biden recalled, as he often does, that he decided to run for president after President Donald Trump equivocated while condemning the neo-Nazis who organized a deadly march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“Repeated episodes of hate — including numerous attacks on Jewish Americans — have since followed Charlottesville, shaking our moral conscience as Americans and challenging the values for which we stand as a Nation,” Biden wrote in an introduction to the report.
The administration launched the initiative last December, after years during which Jewish groups and the FBI reported sharp spikes in antisemitic incidents. The strategy was originally planned for release at its Jewish American Heritage Month celebration last week, but was delayed, in part because of last minute internal squabbling over whether it would accept a definition of antisemitism that some on the left said chilled free speech on Israel. Some right-wing groups were deeply critical of the new strategy for not accepting that definition to the exclusion of others.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) praised the breadth of the plan, and said the delay seemed to produce results.
“The White House has taken this very seriously. The phrase that something is still being worked on can often be a euphemism for a lack of concern,” he said. “In this case, it seems to have resulted in an even more comprehensive and hopefully more effective result.”
Some of the initiatives in the plan focus less on directly confronting antisemitism and more on promoting tolerance of and education about Jews.The Biden Administration will seek to ensure accommodations for Jewish religious observance, the accompanying fact sheet said, and “the Department of Agriculture will work to ensure equal access to all USDA feeding programs for USDA customers with religious dietary needs, including kosher and halal dietary needs.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO who was closely consulted on the strategy, said promoting inclusion was as critical as fighting antisemitism. “Is FEMA giving kosher provisions after disasters going to solve antisemitism?” he said in an interview. “No, but… it’s an acknowledgement of the plurality of communities and the need to treat Jewish people like you would any other minority community, and I think I’m very pleased to see that.”
In the months since Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, convened a roundtable to launch the initiative, the Biden administration has pivoted from focusing on the threat of antisemitism from the far-right to also highlighting its manifestation in other spheres — including amid anti-Israel activism on campuses and the targeting of visibly religious Jews in the northeast. Those factors were evident in the strategy.
“Some traditionally observant Jews, especially traditional Orthodox Jews, are victimized while walking down the street,” the strategy said in its introduction. “Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel.”
The proposal that may provoke controversy beyond American Jewry is the Biden Administration’s calls to reform the tech sector, which echo bipartisan recommendations to change Section 230, a provision of U.S. law that grants platforms immunity from being liable for the content users post. Free speech advocates and the companies themselves say that if the government were to police online speech, it would veer into censorship.
“Tech companies have a critical role to play and for that reason the strategy contains 10 separate calls to tech companies to establish a zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms, to ensure that their algorithms do not pass along hate speech and extreme content to users and to listen more closely to Jewish groups to better understand how antisemitism manifests itself on their platforms,” Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s top Homeland Security adviser, said during a 30-minute briefing on the strategy on Thursday. “The president has also called on Congress to remove the special immunity for online platforms and to impose stronger transparency requirements in order to ensure that tech companies are removing content that violates their terms of service.”
Neo-Nazis and white supremacists encircle counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11, 2017. (Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In the weeks before the rollout, a debate raged online and behind the scenes amid Jewish organizations and activists about how the plan would define antisemitism. Centrist and right-wing groups pushed for the plan to embrace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition. Among its examples of anti-Jewish bigotry are those focusing on when Israel criticism is antisemitic, including when “double standards” applied to Israel are antisemitic.
Advocates on the left say those clauses turn legitimate criticism of Israel into hate speech; instead, they pushed to include references to the Nexus Document, a definition authored by academics that recognizes IHRA but seeks to complement it by further elucidating how anti-Israel expression may be antisemitic in some instances, and not in others. Others sought to include the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which rejects IHRA’s Israel-related examples.
In the end, the strategy said the U.S. government recognizes the IHRA definition as the “most prominent” and “appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.”
A number of the centrist groups pressed for exclusive reference to IHRA, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Those groups praised the strategy and focused only on its embrace of IHRA. So did the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog.
“I would like to congratulate the Biden administration for publishing the first ever national strategy to combat antisemitism,” Herzog wrote on Twitter. “Thank you, @POTUS, for prioritizing the need to confront antisemitism in all its forms. We welcome the re-embracing of @TheIHRA definition which is the gold standard definition of antisemitism.”
Some center-right groups like B’nai Brith International, StandWithUs and the World Jewish Congress, praised the strategy while expressing regret at the inclusion of Nexus. Right-wing groups, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and Christians United for Israel condemned the rollout.
RJC said Biden “blew it” by not exclusively using the IHRA definition. The Brandeis Center, which defends pro-Israel groups and students on campus, said the “substance doesn’t measure up.”
Groups on the left, however, broadly praised the strategy. “We call on our Jewish communities to seize this historic moment and build on this new strategy to ensure that the fight for Jewish safety is a fight for a better and safer America for all,” said a statement from six left-leaning groups spearheaded by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.
Greenblatt said it was predictable that groups on the left would take the win and that groups on the right would grumble — but that it was also beside the point. IHRA, he said, was now U.S. policy.
“This document elevates and advances IHRA as the way that U.S. policy will be formulated going forward and across all of the agencies,” Greenblatt said. “That is a win.”
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Trump is poised to reinforce Iran’s regime — despite Netanyahu’s pressure
President Donald Trump’s Wednesday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took place with an air of urgency around Iran. Yet the men left their three-hour conclave without resolving a fundamental divergence: Israel is deeply suspicious of any agreement with the Islamic Republic, and Trump has a visible preference for keeping diplomacy alive.
So visible, in fact, that Trump announced on Truth Social after the meeting that negotiations with Iran will continue. Where does that leave Israel, which is deeply concerned that Trump, in search of a quick win, will go for a deal that eases sanctions — strengthening the Iranian regime at precisely the time when it seems brittle enough to fall? And what about Iranian critics of the regime, who have good reason to feel betrayed by an American president who encouraged them to protest, and now seems poised to pursue accommodation with the authorities who had protesters killed en masse?
Of course, nothing in the Trump era can be analyzed with absolute certainty. Strategic misdirection is a recognized feature of even normal statecraft, and Trump has elevated unpredictability into something close to doctrine. Yet even allowing for that ambiguity, the meeting made clear that Israel and the United States are not aligned on an absolutely key issue — a potentially perilous state of affairs.
What does Israel want?
Israel does not trust the Iranian regime, for myriad reasons. The Islamic Republic’s missile programs, its sponsorship of proxy militias, and its long record of hostility toward Israel are viewed as elements of a single strategic problem.
Because of that deep and deeply justified mistrust, Israel is wary of any deal that might stabilize or legitimize the regime — a risk raised by Trump’s interest in a new nuclear deal. Israeli leaders are concerned about long-term risk. A renewed agreement focused narrowly on nuclear restrictions would almost inevitably entail sanctions relief or broader economic normalization. Such measures, from Jerusalem’s perspective, would strengthen the very Iranian system that has spent decades spreading havoc across the region.
That doesn’t mean Israel would prefer immediate military confrontation, or that it will speak out against any deal. An agreement that would dismantle Iran’s expanding missile range, including systems capable of reaching Europe, and cut funding from its network of allied armed groups — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad — would possibly be of interest. Trump has so far not publicly stressed those demands.
Israel is politically divided, but when it comes to Iran, a broad consensus cuts across political lines. The regime must fall or radically change, for the sake of human rights within Iran’s borders, and that of a healthy regional future outside them.
What does Trump want?
The American position is less straightforward, largely because it is filtered through Trump’s distinctive political style, and his limited regional knowledge. Trump often appears unbothered by expert and public opinion; he seeks drama, through visible wins, deals, and dramatic reversals. He will present any outcome as an amazing achievement that no predecessor could have hoped for — even if he ends up signing an agreement that looks quite a lot like former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, which he walked away from in 2018.
Trump’s broader worldview might provide insight. Unlike earlier American administrations that explicitly championed democracy promotion, with mixed results, Trump’s national security posture has consistently downplayed ideological missions. His rhetoric and policy frameworks have reflected skepticism toward efforts to reshape other societies’ political systems, instead emphasizing transactional relationships and the avoidance of prolonged entanglements.
This orientation is reinforced by his political base. A significant segment of MAGA-aligned voters wants a more isolationist foreign policy. Within that framework, negotiations that promise de-escalation and risk reduction are politically attractive. Military confrontation, by contrast, carries unpredictable costs.
Trump’s posture, oscillating between threats of force and enthusiasm for negotiation, reflects the strange truth that American political alignments on Iran defy traditional expectations, with hawkishness losing favor on the right. He has preserved the military option while simultaneously projecting optimism about a deal. Meanwhile, a huge and growing armada is parked in the waters near Iran.
What does Iran want?
Assessing Iranian intentions is notoriously difficult. The regime’s history of opaque decision-making, tactical deception, and disciplined negotiation complicates any definitive reading.
Yet certain baseline assumptions are reasonable. First, the regime seeks survival. Whatever ideological ambitions authorities may harbor, self-preservation remains paramount. Sanctions relief, economic stabilization, and reduced risk of direct confrontation with the U.S. all serve that objective.
Second, Iran is unlikely to accept a permanent prohibition on uranium enrichment, particularly at civilian levels. Tehran has consistently framed demands for “zero enrichment” as infringements on sovereignty — a defensible position under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Third, the regime has strong incentives to resist constraints on its missiles and militias, even though the militias are completely indefensible. But the regime exists, essentially, to export jihad, and those groups have been a central pillar of Iran’s project for decades.
Could the Iranian regime be brought down?
This question lurks behind every discussion of Iran, though policymakers rarely address it directly. Regime change, while rhetorically invoked at times, presents immense practical challenges. Many observers doubt that aerial strikes alone could produce political collapse. Modern regimes, particularly those with entrenched security apparatuses, rarely disintegrate solely under external bombardment. Iran’s leadership has demonstrated resilience under severe economic and military pressure, maintaining internal control despite periodic unrest.
That means meaningful regime destabilization would almost certainly require fractures within the state’s military, intelligence, and security forces, or coordinated ground dynamics that external actors can neither easily predict nor control. Such scenarios introduce enormous risks, including civil conflict, regional spillover and severe disruptions to global energy markets.
The regime’s brutality may reinforce its durability. A leadership willing to impose extreme domestic repression is less vulnerable to popular pressure than one constrained by public accountability. Last month Trump suggested the U.S. would support the protesters; that pledge appears to no longer be on his radar. The protesters were not seeking a better nuclear deal — which is now his apparent sole focus — but better lives.
So what happens now?
All of this suggests that Israel will be unhappy with any outcome to this period of tensions. It is much less likely that pressure from Trump will bring real reform to the Iranian regime is than that Trump will sign off on a deal that seems counter to Israel’s long-term interests.
In the coming days, it may become clearer whether Netanyahu persuaded Trump to expand the scope of negotiations to include Iran’s missile program and its network of proxy militias. It is also possible that talks will collapse, and that military action will follow.
But this much is clear: If the regime survives intact and is strengthened in the process, that would be a profound tragedy. For 47 years, the Islamic Republic has oppressed its own people while exporting instability across the Middle East. That is roughly the same span of time that communism endured in Eastern Europe before popular unrest finally brought it down.
Only a month ago, there was a palpable sense that the Iranian people were courageously pressing for a similar reckoning. To reward a weakened and discredited regime at such a moment by helping it stabilize itself — in exchange for promises about uranium enrichment alone — would be a historic missed opportunity.
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Jewish congresswoman storms out of Epstein hearing after Pam Bondi raises her record on antisemitism
(JTA) — Rep. Becca Balint stormed out of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday after Bondi deflected questions about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and instead criticized Balint’s record on antisemitism.
Lawmakers called the hearing to press Bondi on a range of issues, including Epstein and the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Balint, a Vermont progressive, asked Bondi during her questioning whether Trump had been aware of billionaire financier Howard Lutnick’s ties to Epstein when he was appointed as commerce secretary. The most recent files released last month showed that Lutnick had visited Epstein’s private island and dined with him years after he said he had cut off ties — and after Epstein pled guilty to sex crimes.
After Bondi refused to answer Balint’s question, the congresswoman replied, “I’m going to conclude that the president, in fact, did know about his ties.”
At the end of Balint’s questioning, which devolved into shouting as Bondi consistently interrupted Balint, Bondi then raised Balint’s record on antisemitism.
“With this antisemitic culture right now, she voted against a resolution condemning ‘from the river to the sea,’” said Bondi, appearing to refer to Balint’s April 2024 vote against a House resolution condemning the common pro-Palestinian slogan. (At the time, Balint said the resolution was “yet another way to sow division and demonize Palestinians.”)
Balint quickly shot back at Bondi’s remarks.
“Oh, do you want to go there, attorney general? Do you want to go there? Are you serious? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust? Really? Really?” said Balint, before rising from her seat and exiting the chambers.
During her 2022 campaign for Vermont’s single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Balint, who describes her family as “Jew-ish,” frequently invoked the story of her Jewish grandfather’s murder during the Holocaust.
“My grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust,” Balint said in a campaign video at the time. “My whole life I’ve known that beating the forces set on dividing us takes showing up every chance you get.”
Balint’s grandfather, Leopold Bálint, was killed by the Nazis on a forced march from Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1945 after he stopped to assist a prisoner.
The hearing Wednesday featured scathing criticism from Democratic lawmakers of Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case, with Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin accusing her of “siding with the perpetrators” and “ignoring the victims.”
“If AG Bondi claims to care about Epstein survivors, why did she reveal their identities but redact the names of the rich pedophiles and sex abusers who hurt them?” Balint wrote in a post on X Wednesday. “She must take accountability for this cover-up and finally deliver the justice these victims deserve.”
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What Carrie Prejean Boller tells us about Christian Zionism in the U.S.
Carrie Prejean Boller, a former Miss California and a recent Catholic convert, was removed Wednesday from the Religious Liberties Commission after she made some controversial remarks about Jews and Israel in a hearing on antisemitism.
“Catholics do not embrace Zionism,” she said. “So are all Catholics antisemites?”
Prejean Boller was responding to the idea, presented by a staunchly pro-Israel set of Jewish witnesses testifying at the hearing, that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
This is a complex debate that has divided the Jewish community over the past several years, even before Oct. 7 shot the issue into the spotlight, with numerous debates over how antisemitism should be defined. But Prejean Boller was not, beyond a few mentions of Palestinian lives in Gaza, engaging with the usual questions that divide Jews on the question of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism. Her issue was with whether or not Zionism is part of Christian biblical prophecy.
“As a Catholic, I don’t agree that the new, modern state of Israel has any biblical prophecy meaning at all,” she said in the hearing. Later, she doubled down on X. “I’m a proud Catholic. I, in no way will be forced to embrace Zionism as a fulfillment of biblical prophesy,” she wrote.
What she was referring to was the idea of Christian Zionism — the theological belief among some Christians that the Bible supports the existence of the modern state of Israel. Some forms of Christian Zionism support the Jewish state as a necessary, prophesied precursor to Jesus’ return; all Jews must return to Israel before the end of days. Others may simply support Israel because they believe it shares their “Judeo-Christian” biblical foundations. But whatever the reasons, there has historically been widespread political support for Israel among American Christians. And that support has been core to Israel’s relationship with the U.S.
The lobbying group Christians United for Israel boasts a membership of 10 million, not only larger than any Jewish pro-Israel group but larger than the population of Jews in the U.S.; its influence has been key to passing measures such as moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The power of this support from evangelicals is perhaps why Dani Dayan, Israel’s former consul general in New York, said in 2021 that Israel “invested most of its energy in the relationship with conservatives, Republicans, evangelicals, and a certain type of Jews only.”
Prejean Boller’s comments are representative of a recent shift among American Christians, away from Christian Zionism.
“Where does my support for Israel come from? Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel,” said Ted Cruz on Tucker Carlson’s show last year. “Hold on, hold on!” Carlson responded, acting as though he had never heard of this crazy idea that Christians support Israel based on the Bible.
That Carlson, an influential leader on the right and a devout Christian, would act as though Christian support for Israel was not only unbiblical but absurd, was a bellwether.
According to a survey commissioned by the University of North Carolina, support for Israel among young evangelicals, ages 18 to 29, fell from 75% to 34% between 2018 and 2021 — in fact, support for Israel dropped more precipitously among this evangelical group than it did in the general American population. And a 2024 version of the same survey found that Christians were less likely to consider their support for Israel on biblical grounds.
Prejean Boller, who converted to Catholicism from evangelical Christianity in April, called out these evangelical beliefs specifically in a post on X, saying that her conversion to Catholicism was predicated in part on repudiating evangelical Christian Zionism.
“My conversion to the fullness of the Catholic faith exposed what I was taught in American evangelicalism, a version of Christianity that fused Jesus with a political agenda and called it ‘God’s prophecy being fulfilled,’” she wrote. “It isn’t.”
Prejean Boller’s statements join those of Carlson, as well as more openly conspiratorial and antisemitic influencers like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens — who Prejean Boller defended in the hearing as a Christian leader, saying she listens to the podcaster regularly and does not believe she is antisemitic.
These influencers and political leaders spread antisemitic conspiracy theories alongside sharp criticism of Israel, often on Christian grounds. All repudiate biblical justifications for Christian Zionism, and often frame antisemitic beliefs as core parts of Christianity.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a right-wing congresswoman from Georgia and a devout Christian, voted against an antisemitism bill in Congress on the grounds that it would persecute Christians for their religious belief that Jews killed Jesus; she has also invoked her Christianity when rejecting U.S. support for Israel. Greene tweeted her support for Prejean after the hearing on antisemitism.
To be clear, the vast majority of American Christians and particularly American evangelicals continue to support Zionism as part of their religious beliefs. But other forms of Christianity are gaining visibility and political power, shifting the dominant Christian views on Israel. If the current trends continue, support for Christian Zionism may continue to decline, whether or not Prejean Boller is on the Religious Liberties Council.
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