Republican and Democratic members of Congress reiterated their support for Israel and the American Jewish community at the Zionist Organization of America’s fly-in to Washington on Tuesday.
Representatives and senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Reps. Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.Y.), George Lattimer (D-N.Y.), Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and Clay Fuller (R-Ga.), called for a stronger U.S.-Israel relationship and condemned the rise in Jew-hatred in the United States.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said that antisemites now include office-holders in both parties and referred to Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who would go on to win his primary election later that evening.
“The fact that we have elected officials in the halls of Congress who traffic in this bulls*** should outrage every single one of us in this room,” Lawler said. “You literally have somebody running on the ballot today in Maine with a Nazi tattoo.”
“The dehumanization of Jews in rhetoric, through the use of violence, attacking Jews at synagogue or yeshiva—too many people think it’s okay,” Lawler said. “Let me be clear. Not on my f***ing watch.”
Morton Klein, ZOA’s national president, told JNS that the nearly 200 members of the group who came to Washington to speak with their members of Congress were focused on preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, supporting legislation to fight Jew-hatred and urging government agencies to refer to the “West Bank” as Judea and Samaria.
“The most important issues I think every Jew in America feels is Iran and antisemitism,” Klein said. “We do have people supporting the Jewish people in Congress, and of course almost all these members of Congress and the Senate, almost none of them are Jewish, and yet they were stronger than almost any Jew I know.”
Klein told JNS that the leaders of American Jewish groups and Israeli politicians held much of the blame for declining support for Israel in the United States by failing to condemn the claims of the Palestinian Authority.
“The Israeli leadership and the Jewish leadership has not fought back properly to make clear the horrific lie of genocide, the horrific lie of apartheid, the horrific lie that we stole land,” Klein said. “We have not done our job of fighting these lies by Jew-haters.”
“The worst you’ll hear the Israeli leaders and even Jewish leaders say is ‘they’re not a partner for peace,’” he said. “You’ll never hear them say, ‘They’re Nazi-like monsters, who want to kill every Jew.’ So we are partially to blame—we Jews and Israeli officials are partially to blame for this enormous surge in hatred against Jews by not pushing back.”
