The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which blamed the Jewish state for being attacked on Oct. 7 and which the White House removed from its national strategy on Jew-hatred, called on Sunday for the Biden administration to fire Deborah Lipstadt as U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.
Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian, was asked at the Israeli-American Council annual summit in Washington, D.C., to respond to global perceptions that Israel is weak after Hamas carried out its terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
“Do you want a beeper?” Lipstadt asked, drawing applause from the audience. (Footage of the exchange, and critical response to it, has drawn hundreds of thousands of views on social media.)
CAIR stated that the U.S. envoy celebrated “Israel’s recent state terrorism in Lebanon that left a number of civilians, including children, dead or injured.”
“Special envoy Lipstadt’s callous remarks are not only disgusting but also dangerous. At a time when our nation’s government claims it is working to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Lebanon, her flippant celebration of state-sponsored terrorism undermines diplomatic efforts to prevent a broader war in the region,” stated Robert McCaw, CAIR’s government affairs director
“Joking about the loss of innocent lives, especially children, is a disgrace and should have no place in U.S. foreign-policy discussions,” he added. “It sends a message to the world that the U.S. government condones or even celebrates the slaughter of Arab and Muslim civilians. This is not just immoral; it’s irresponsible.”
CAIR drew extensive criticism for its call to fire Lipstadt.
“How about they fire whoever consulted CAIR to develop a White House antisemitism strategy,” wrote Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Have we ever learned who did that?”
Eli Lake, a Free Press columnist and Commentary contributing editor, called CAIR’s statement “the pro-Jihad tone police.”
“The beeper mission was probably the most elaborate and successful military operation in history, using old communication equipment to target members of a designated terrorist organization,” wrote Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District. “But haters of Israel … don’t want Israel to defend itself against terrorists.”
“This might be the funniest Ambassador Lipstadt ever said,” added Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, who co-runs the Chabad of the Bluegrass and the Chabad Jewish Student Center at the University of Kentucky.
