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There’s a new Jewish Caucus in Congress. Its mission is still unclear.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than a dozen Jewish members of Congress gathered on Friday for the first meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives Jewish Caucus.
But following the meeting, held in the offices of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an influential Jewish Democrat from Florida, it remains unclear what the caucus will stand for as the chamber’s Jews are deeply divided over the Israel-Hamas war and other issues. A statement from Wasserman Schultz’s office suggested the caucus was still finding its feet.
“We had a very-well attended, constructive meeting focused on how we can work together and develop our broader mission,” the statement said. “We did a lot of listening and considering one another’s opinions and thoughts. We left looking forward to continuing to engage in these discussions with our colleagues so that we can come together in consensus on how a secular Jewish Caucus can be most effective.”
The House has 26 Jewish lawmakers, all but two of them Democrats, and it is unclear which attended the meeting and whether either of the Republicans made it — especially because six congresspeople who RSVPed canceled at the last minute due to illness or sudden conflicts. Ohio Republican Max Miller had said he would attend, but he did not confirm whether he was there. Nor did Tennessee Republican David Kustoff.
Wasserman Schultz is alarmed at the spike in antisemitic attacks and rhetoric in the United States since Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, launching the current war in Israel and Gaza. She wants to formalize a united front among Jews in Congress to confront the hatred.
For decades, Jewish members of Congress had been gathering unofficially. Earlier this month, Axios reported that Wasserman Schultz got the go-ahead from House administrators to make the Jewish Caucus official — though it appears that not all Jews in the House believe the caucus should exist.
For the last decade, the unofficial gatherings were helmed by Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat who is the longest-serving Jew in Congress. He told Axios that he would attend Friday’s meeting, but was concerned that the organizers — i.e., Wasserman Schultz — did not consult with all the Jews in the chamber before creating the caucus.
“In the rush to form this new group, by contrast, most Jewish members were left out of the discussion altogether,” he said. He also said the hurt feelings would be a distraction as the caucus seeks unanimity on the Israel-Hamas war.
There are currently official Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific caucuses in the House, and there are formal Jewish caucuses in state governments; one of the most active is in California. But one issue that may have prevented the formation of a House Jewish Caucus until now is the age-old question of what “Jewish” means.
A concern reported by Axios — which has long been discussed among Jews in the U.S. Capitol — is that some Jewish lawmakers fear setting the precedent of establishing an explicitly religious caucus — especially because Jews tend to cherish the separation of church and state. That may be why Wasserman Schultz’s statement included the word “secular” right before “Jewish Caucus.”
Another fear is that the wide differences among members of a Jewish Caucus would undermine its purported purpose: Jewish unity.
In late October, Nadler wrangled all 24 Jewish Democrats into signing a statement backing the Biden administration’s robust support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Within weeks, that united front was crumbling, as a number of Jewish Democrats joined calls for a ceasefire.
Beyond differences about the war, there are vast differences among Jews in Congress over, well, everything. Wasserman Schultz sought, and got, Miller’s membership in the caucus, making it the only one of the ethnic caucuses to have bipartisan membership. But Miller is among the most enthusiastic endorsers of former President Donald Trump, while the caucus also includes Nadler and Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Dan Goldman of New York and Adam Schiff of California — all of whom played leading roles in one or both impeachments of Trump. Schiff and Trump routinely express the hope that the other is jailed.
Some members, such as Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz (who hoped to attend but was unable to), see Jews as an ethnic minority subject to persecution.
“At a time when there’s people marching through the streets with signs calling to ‘Gas the Jews,’ it is absolutely critical that Jewish members form a united front against antisemitism and for the safety and security of the Jewish people,” Moskowitz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The sensitivity of the get-together made even the most voluble of lawmakers clam up about it. A number of spokesmen promised to get back to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about whether their bosses were in attendance but never did. A spokeswoman for Vermont’s Becca Balint, a Democrat who joined Congress earlier this year, simply said that she was not in attendance.
Kathy Manning, a North Carolina Democrat, attended the meeting and said it centered on the need to confront antisemitism.
“I’m pleased to join in the founding of the Congressional Jewish Caucus,” she said. “During this time of rising antisemitism, it’s imperative that the Jewish community have its unique experience and perspective represented at the leadership table in Congress.”
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The post There’s a new Jewish Caucus in Congress. Its mission is still unclear. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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South African Jews Forcibly Removed While Protesting Minister’s Call to Intensify Pro-Hamas Campus Protests
Jewish protesters being harassed outside the Sandton Convention Center in South Africa. Photo: Provided by South African Jewish Board of Deputies
South Africa’s Jewish community on Friday protested Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor’s recent call for students and university leaders to intensify the anti-Israel demonstrations that have engulfed college campuses across the US, chanting “no space for Jew hate” as they were forcibly removed despite demonstrating peacefully.
Members of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) and South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) gathered at the entrance of the Sandton Convention Center, a major venue for hosting events in South Africa, to protest what they described as an incitement to violence and antisemitism by a senior government official.
The Jewish activists were met with verbal and even physical abuse, with some people attending a conference at the center pointing and shouting “Zionist” at them in an accusatory tone.. In one case, someone physically pulled a poster out of a protester’s hands, spat in her face, and told her to “f—k off,” according to the SAJBD.
The police ended up physically relocating the protesters from outside the entrance of the convention center as they shouted, “No space for Jew hate.”
The SAJBD noted that the peaceful demonstration was solely meant to raise awareness about the threat to the safety of Jewish students on university campuses and was limited to 15 people, thereby within in the legal parameters for a public gathering.
The protest was in response to comments that Pandor made while delivering a lecture at the University of Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Titling her lecture “The Responsibility of the Academy in a Time of Genocide,” Pandor urged greater university and student activism and boycotts against Israel for what she called its “scholasticide” and “systemic obliteration of education” in Gaza.
Pandor accused Israel of deliberately targeting schools and libraries during its military campaign in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by the Hamas terror group.
Hamas launched the ongoing conflict with its Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel and massacre of civilians, leading the Israeli military to launch a campaign aimed at destroying the terror organization and freeing the hostages kidnapped during its onslaught. Pandor did not mention that Hamas terrorists embed themselves within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeer civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
During her speech, Pandor encouraged those in attendance to become anti-Israel activists.
“My expectation is after our talk you will become activists,” she said. “As educators, advocates, activists, civil society and state structures, we should all play a role in the global struggle in search of truth and justice.”
She added, “It is our collective responsibility to raise our voices in solidarity with the people of Palestine who are fighting for their survival in the midst of the genocidal campaign being waged against them.”
Pandor then turned to the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations that have erupted across university campuses over the past month, calling on South Africa to do more in support of the movement.
“We are also buoyed by the growing mobilization on college campuses across the world in support of the just cause for freedom and justice of the people of Palestine,” she said. “We hope that this unprecedented activism by students in the US will also spur greater activism among student movements here in South Africa, and spur more vocal support from our university administrators, some of whom have remained silent.”
For over three weeks, university students have been amassing in the hundreds at a growing number of schools, taking over sections of campus by setting up “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” and refusing to leave unless administrators condemn and boycott Israel. Footage of the protests has shown demonstrators chanting in support of Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel, and even threatening to harm members of the Jewish community on campus. In many cases, activists have also lambasted the US and Western civilization more broadly.
The protests initially erupted across the US but have since spread to university campuses around the world, primarily in the West.
In a statement shared with The Algemeiner, SAJBD national director Wendy Kahn lambasted Pandor’s comments.
“We were horrified that Minister Pandor at a lecture at the University of Johannesburg called to import the violence and antisemitism that is plaguing university campuses in the United States to our local campuses in South Africa. What an irresponsible call,” said Kahn, who noted that Pandor’s remarks came as students were preparing for their final examinations.
“Can you imagine if this starts to incite violence and intimidation on our own campuses in our country?” she continued. “We should do everything to make sure the education of our students continues and is not compromised in any way. This would compromise not only Jewish students who will experience the antisemitism but all the students at our universities where there will be a stand-still to education.”
The SAJBD called on Pandor to retract her remarks encouraging campus demonstrations against Israel, arguing that such rhetoric risked being especially dangerous just three weeks out from South Africa’s general elections.
“This is unacceptable,” Kahn concluded. “We call on you to stop this kind of incitement. It doesn’t belong in South Africa.”
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has been one of the harshest critics of Israel since Oct. 7.
South Africa temporarily withdrew its diplomats from Israel and shuttered its embassy in Tel Aviv shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom, saying that the Pretoria government was “extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians” in Gaza.
In December, South Africa hosted two Hamas officials who attended a government-sponsored conference in solidarity with the Palestinians. One of the officials had been sanctioned by the US government for his role with the terrorist organization.
Earlier this year, the South African government failed in its bid to argue before the International Court of Justice that Israel’s defensive war in Gaza constituted a “genocide.”
The post South African Jews Forcibly Removed While Protesting Minister’s Call to Intensify Pro-Hamas Campus Protests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Palestinian Authority Celebrates and Supports Antisemitic Campus Hate Fests
Anti-Israel illegal encampments, initiated on college campuses across the United States, have now been spreading all around the world. In many cases, they have featured intimidation and attacks that have placed Jews and supporters of Israel in physical danger, with some even hospitalized.
The situation has deteriorated so much to the point that Columbia University and others have canceled or changed graduation ceremonies. Overall, many Jewish students have reported feeling extremely unsafe, and lawlessness has spread to many campuses.
It comes as no surprise that the Palestinian Authority (PA) gives these hate fests its overwhelming support, since the PA is often the source of the talking points for the anti-Israel movement.
A recurring libel to delegitimize Israel at these demonstrations has been the fundamental message of PA ideology — that the State of Israel is a colonialist implant and therefore has no right to exist.
Fatah’s youth movement, Shabiba, in its statement of thanks to students in the United States and at Columbia University in particular, called the conflict with Israel a “war of occupation” that “has been continuing for more than 75 years,” meaning since the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
The Fatah Shabiba [Youth] Movement expressed its appreciation for the student protest movement at the American universities supporting the Palestinian cause … [At] a time when our Palestinian people is dealing wherever it is with a policy of discrimination and apartheid and with the war of occupation, which has been continuing for more than 75 years [i.e., since the establishment of modern Israel], this important, historic, and unprecedented student protest movement comes to support the Palestinian cause… [emphasis added]
[Wafa, official PA news agency, April 27, 2024]
The statement of thanks, which was published by the PA’s official news agency, has a picture of a protestor at Columbia University waving a Palestinian flag covered by the Fatah Shabiba Youth Movement logo.
Besides thanking the students, Shabiba also leveled fierce criticism at any attempt by the authorities to finally restore a semblance of order to campus. It totally disregarded the antisemitism so prevalent at these protests by passing them off as “false accusations … on the pretext of antisemitism … in a manner that contradicts democratic principles and values:”
The Fatah Shabiba Movement condemned the attacks against the protesting students and the lecturers at the American universities, the blow to their right to express an opinion and to assembly, the hurling of false accusations against them on the pretext of ‘Antisemitism,’ the arrest of a number of the students, and the exaggeratedly violent treatment of them by the police officers and those opposing this historic protest movement.
It expressed its opposition to all the punitive measures and suspension decisions taken against a number of the male students, female students, and lecturers, in a manner that contradicts the democratic principles and values that the US has waved around as a slogan since its establishment. [emphasis added]
On official PA TV, a prominent journalist also hurled criticism at the attempts to restore order, saying that they were a defense of evil:
Egyptian state-owned paper Al Gomhuria Deputy Editor-in-Chief Ihab Nafea: “The stubborn behavior in managing the crisis by Columbia University President [Minouche Shafik] — she is attempting to gain favor with the American administration and is presenting herself as being against what is happening, but I think she will pay a heavy price for this because in the end, she is defending evil and the students are defending justice.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals, May 6, 2024]
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) indicated through an official Fatah spokesperson on official PA news that the protests were the culmination of a longstanding coordinated effort by Palestinian communities in the US:
PLO Executive Committee member Osama Al-Qawasmi expressed his appreciation for the student protest movement that supports the Palestinian cause at the universities of the US and some other states. In a statement to [the official PA] radio [station] The Voice of Palestine, he explained that this protest movement came as a result of an effort that the Palestinian communities there have made for many years … [emphasis added]
[WAFA, official PA news agency, May 1, 2024]
The notion that these protests are part of a greater coordinated effort was also asserted on official PA TV by a prominent Palestinian activist in the US:
This is what makes us happy in the American arena and this is part of the fruits of the ongoing labor that has been conducted by the Arab, Palestinian, and Islamic communities and the supporters in the American arena…
What is currently happening in the American arena is a shout to humanity, a shout against oppression, a shout to support the Palestinians, and a shout to this [American] administration that has not relinquished its Zionism and its positions, which joined itself to the occupation state in its war of annihilation against our people in the Gaza Strip in particular and in the West Bank and Palestine in general.” [emphasis added]
[Palestinian activist in the US Hayel Mansour, Official PA TV, April 26, 2024]
Finally, the PA’s goal of delegitimizing Israel to the point that it would lead to the state’s destruction was reiterated in a recent PA TV broadcast:
Arab American paper Al-Hawadeth Editor-in-Chief Adnan Khalil: “In practice, the occupation state [i.e., Israel] cannot live without the world and without the wealthy capitalist states. It was always — it was planted by Western colonialism; it was supported and is still supported [by it]. Without this, we would not be talking about Israel that we know today, which can defeat or confront the Arab states, the Arab people, and the Palestinian people, because the Palestinian people are being crushed by this state, by American weapons, and by support from the American politicians.
Now, as the [American] masses have turned against these regimes, this is a very big thing, very big and very influential. We will see the liberation of Palestine in our lifetime without a doubt. This undoubtedly gives us hope, and we will yet see this liberation in our lifetime.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, April 30, 2024]
Through its hate speech, the PA leadership has manipulated university students around the world into thinking that by fighting Jews and Israel, they are fighting colonialism and imperialism. And as events worldwide have demonstrated, the PA hate propaganda has been very effective.
Ephraim D. Tepler is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Itamar Marcus is PMW’s Founder and Director. A version of this article originally appeared at PMW.
The post Palestinian Authority Celebrates and Supports Antisemitic Campus Hate Fests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Media Falsely Blame Israel for Rejecting Hamas’ Ceasefire ‘Proposal’
A man waves a Palestinian flag as pro-Hamas demonstrators protest next to the Greek parliament, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Athens, Greece, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
Shortly after Israel started attacking Hamas’ last stronghold in Rafah on Monday, May 6, the terror group suddenly announced that it had “accepted” a proposed ceasefire deal from Arab mediators.
With few exceptions, media outlets rushed to echo Hamas’ claim in uncritical headlines that painted Israel as the aggressor and the terrorists as peace-seeking doves.
In fact, Hamas had accepted a “deal” that it proposed itself — a counteroffer that Israel had not even seen the terms of, and which was later described by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “very far from Israel’s core demands.”
Hamas could not even confirm whether 33 Israeli hostages who would be freed in the first phase of the so-called deal are still alive, something Israel has insisted upon. And their proposal demanded an immediate and permanent end to the war, which Israel has never agreed to.
Here are a few examples of media headlines that got it wrong:
The Washington Post (picking up AP) and Euronews painted Israel as a regional bully that attacks Rafah even though Hamas “accepts” a ceasefire deal:
BBC World painted Hamas as peace-loving good guys who can be quoted as reliable sources:
TIME Magazine’s headline included Israel’s position but based it on an official familiar with Israeli “thinking:”
France 24 went as far as suggesting that Israel started its Rafah attack in response to Hamas’ acceptance of a ceasefire deal:
Journalistic Responsibility
Amid this faulty general coverage, it’s worth giving kudos to an example of journalistic responsibility.
In The New York Times, Peter Baker hit the nail on its head and Isabelle Kershner accurately described the gaps between Hamas and Israel on the ceasefire proposal:
While so many media are crediting Hamas with accepting a ceasefire and accusing Israel of rejecting one, kudos to @peterbakernyt of @nytimes for doing some actual journalism and not falling into Hamas’ propaganda trap.https://t.co/cypVUJMshu pic.twitter.com/I6IXfwTx6D
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2024
Sadly, this is not the first time that news outlets have rushed to parrot the words of a proscribed terrorist organization, as they did in their haste to blame Israel for the Al-Ahli Hospital blast, which was later confirmed to be the result of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket.
It is also well known that Hamas is pulling the media’s strings in Gaza, as am Islamic Jihad spokesperson recently admitted.
It’s time the media stopped falling for a terror organization’s propaganda tricks.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media Falsely Blame Israel for Rejecting Hamas’ Ceasefire ‘Proposal’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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