ADVERTISEMENT

Eager to Court Jews (and Fracture Democrats), Republicans Push Bills on Anti-Semitism

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
77,133
58,316
113
Democrats hoped to put their wrenching intraparty debate over anti-Semitism to rest when they passed a catchall antibigotry resolution in the House this month, but Senate Republicans, eager to court American Jews outraged by the rise of anti-Semitism, have other plans.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, is backing two new bills timed to be trumpeted at this week’s annual meeting in Washington of the largest pro-Israel advocacy group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Mr. McConnell has already passed a measure this year giving local and state governments the authority to break ties with companies that boycott or divest from Israel.

The actions are part of a larger political strategy aimed, in part, at showing that Republicans are more willing to directly tackle anti-Semitic hate speech and anti-Israel language than divided Democrats in the lower chamber, Republican aides and operatives said. But hate speech has hardly been a longtime cause célèbre for the Republican Party, whose members have opposed efforts to expand similar protections to victims of discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation.

One measure, a “sense of the Senate” resolution, is intended as a direct rebuke of comments made by Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who suggested that some American Jews had dual loyalties to both Israel and the United States. The bill, sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, could reach the floor as early as this week, leadership aides said, and is likely to be passed unanimously or with only minimal opposition.

Advertisement

The centerpiece of the resolution is the declaration that “anti-Semitism has for hundreds of years included attacks on the loyalty of Jews.”

A draft circulated in the Senate also links the dual loyalty charge to the “circulation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by the secret police of Russia,” a reference to a fabricated early-20th century document intended to whip up anti-Semitism by purporting to show a Jewish plot for global domination.

Senate Republicans have not always been so enthusiastic about toughening anti-discrimination enforcement. Efforts by Democrats during the Obama administration to pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which added gender, sexual orientation and disability to the list of federally recognized hate crimes, were initially blocked by Republicans, led by Jeff Sessions, then a senator and later Mr. Trump’s first attorney general.

The measure eventually passed in 2009, but only five Senate Republicans voted yes. Mr. McConnell and many members of his current leadership team opposed it.

The sense of the Senate measure is intended as a challenge to Ms. Omar, although her name was intentionally omitted from the text to attract Democrats who might otherwise object, according to an aide involved in the drafting process.


“It’s absolutely critical for the United States Senate to stand up, speak with one voice and condemn” anti-Semitism, said Billy Gribbin, a spokesman for Mr. Cruz.

A second, less drastic bill — a bipartisan effort to target anti-Semitism on college campuses through the Education Department’s civil rights enforcement division — poses a far more substantial political threat to Democrats trying to move quickly past the dust-up over Ms. Omar.



The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which is working its way through committee, is likely to pass the Senate this year, and could force Speaker Nancy Pelosi into the uncomfortable position of brokering another deal between progressives and Jewish Democrats at a time when she wants the chamber to focus on presenting unified opposition to President Trump.

The measure, co-sponsored by Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, and Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, passed the Senate in 2016 with bipartisan support. But it quickly stalled in the House, which was then controlled by Republicans, and attracted the opposition of many civil liberties groups that believe it threatens free speech on campuses.

The bill broadly defines anti-Semitism as “harassment on the basis of actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics with a religious group” and also targets “discriminatory anti-Israel conduct that crosses the line into anti-Semitism.”

Under the measure, the Education Department would be required to investigate and possibly penalize universities that receive federal aid if they failed to crack down on incidents, using the same process laid out under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which has historically been used to deal with discrimination based on race.



Ms. Pelosi has not said whether she would support the bill if it passed the Senate, and a spokeswoman declined to comment. A House leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized publicly, said the bill was likely to draw extended scrutiny in House committees before — or if — it was ever considered on the floor.

It is not clear how Ms. Omar and other progressives would vote on the measure, although similar efforts have attracted opposition on the basis of objections by the American Civil Liberties Union and progressive Jewish groups.

“This legislation appears designed less to combat anti-Semitism than to have a chilling effect and to crack down on campus critics of Israel,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal advocacy group that has been sharply critical of Israel’s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a text message.

“It’s misguided to legislatively declare a broad range of nonviolent campus criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, especially at a time when the prime driver of anti-Semitism is the xenophobic, white nationalist far-right,” he said. “This bill is part of a cynical effort by some of its right-wing proponents to turn the issue of anti-Semitism into a partisan political weapon.”

But in the past, the bill has had widespread support among lawmakers in both parties, and it has the backing of Aipac and the Anti-Defamation League. It also has the support of a powerful outside advocate: David Krone, the hard-driving former chief of staff to Harry Reid, the former Senate Democratic leader, who has used his contacts in the party to push the measure for several years in response to a wave of anti-Semitism on college campuses.

“I find great irony in what Congresswoman Omar said about the issue of Jews and dual loyalty,” Mr. Krone said in an interview. “I am certain that she found the whole birther movement disgusting, vile and flat-out racist. I agree. It was abhorrent to question the loyalty of President Obama. But how, on one hand, can she say it is wrong about people questioning President Obama’s loyalties, but on the other hand, question mine as a Jew? What she said and what some stupid birther said are equally idiotic.”

Ms. Omar’s spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment.

Top Democrats are hardly ready to cede support of Israel to Republicans. Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the Democratic leader, gave a rousing defense of the American-Israeli relationship at the Aipac conference Sunday evening, promising to push for a resolution that opposes the boycott Israel movement. Without naming her, he took several jabs at Ms. Omar.

Advertisement

“Ladies and gentlemen, when someone accuses American supporters of dual loyalty, I say: Accuse me.” Mr. Hoyer declared.

And he also took a shot at two other freshman Democrats who are critical of Israel, Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: “By the way, there are 62 freshman Democrats. You hear me? Sixty-two, not three.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/24/us/politics/senate-republicans-anti-semitism.html
 
ADVERTISEMENT