Republicans concerned about antisemitism on school campuses should show concern first for their party’s presumptive presidential nominee, a Democratic representative declared May 8.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., is the ranking Democratic member of the K-12 Subcommittee of the House Education Committee. In both her opening and closing statements at a two-hour hearing on antisemitism in public schools, she lambasted her Republican colleagues for accusing others of silence in the face of antisemitism while ignoring the record of Donald Trump.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images for NAMM)
Republicans, who hold a razor-thin majority in the House, control the committee, and the Republican chairman, Rep. Aaron Bean of Florida accused the three school leaders called in as witnesses of failing in their duty to protect students from antisemitism.
He questioned why school leaders haven’t fired teachers and administrators who have not stopped or responded well to antisemitic incidents on school campuses.
All three school leaders called to testify work in Democratic-leaning communities: New York City; Berkeley, Calif.; and Montgomery County, Md., outside Washington.
Bonamici took the lead in calling out the hypocrisy in her Republican colleagues’ concern for rooting out antisemitism in Democratic communities while ignoring documented antisemitism among Republican leaders — and attempting to cut funding for the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates antisemitism.
“Many of my colleagues claim to care about the rise of antisemitism in this country, but when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville … with burning torches and chanting, ‘Jews will not replace us,’ the president at the time, Donald Trump, said, ‘There were very fine people on both sides,’” Bonamici noted.
“If my colleagues care about antisemitism, they would condemn and denounce these comments from the leader of their party,” she said. “Does anyone have the courage to stand up against this?” After a pause, she continued, “Let the record show no one spoke up at this time.”
“If my colleagues care about antisemitism, they would condemn and denounce these comments from the leader of their party.”
She said Trump just last weekend told donors at his Florida resort that President Joe Biden is running a “Gestapo administration.” Trump also has associated publicly with known antisemites, she added.
“Despite these persistent examples of comments that others have called antisemitic and continued relationships with well-known antisemites, I have not heard one word of concern for my colleagues across the aisle. In fact, what we have seen is consolidation of support for the former president,” she summarized.
In her closing statements, Bonamici declared: “It pains me to say this, but it’s relevant. The top Republican running for president of the United states has engaged not only in antisemitic tropes but also in divisive degrading and disparaging language including mocking a reporter with a disability, calling American troops cowards if they were captured, ignoring the rule of law, threatening to have people shot by police for a shoplifting or a minor crime, bragging about groping stars and making so many countless and demeaning comments about women that it’s impossible to count them.
“I could go on, but my point is sadly there has been a tone set at the top that seems to tolerate disrespect for others, a tone that hurts not just us as a legislative body but as a nation. So I’ll say it again: It is my hope that this committee will set aside differences and work in good faith on how we can best address and prevent antisemitism in our schools in our country as well as other hate speech.”
Trump’s record of antisemitic remarks is so long that the Washington Post wrote an entire article cataloguing them in 2022.
Among the examples not already mentioned:
- He attacked American Jews for being insufficiently supportive of him. “Wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of (his record on Israel) than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.”
- He said he was so popular in Israel that he could be elected prime minister, added, “U.S. Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel — before it is too late!”
- He has repeatedly spoken of American Jews as belonging more to the state of Israel than to the U.S. as citizens, referring to “your country,” “your prime minister” and “your ambassador.”
- He accused American Jews multiple times of not loving Israel enough.
- He said, “Any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
- While campaigning in 2015, he played to the trope that Jews control society by virtue of their money and cunning — one of the oldest and more pernicious antisemitic tropes.
- In the 2016 campaign, he tweeted an image of Hillary Clinton surrounded by money with the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” inside a six-pointed star, the shape of the Star of David.
- He ran an ad featuring prominent Jews — George Soros, Janet Yellen and Lloyd Blankfein — while warning of “global special interests.”
- In a December 2021 interview, Trump said, “It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress, and today I think it’s the exact opposite.”
- In a 2019 speech to the Israeli American Council, Trump said: “A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. Not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me; you have no choice.”
In 2016, the Times of Israel also devoted an entire article to Trump’s “antisemitism controversies.”
That article led with an obvious historical fact: Trump’s campaign slogan, “America First,” “echoes the World War II-era non-interventionist movement championed by a notorious antisemite.”
This is not all past comments either. In March this year, Trump said on a talk show: “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel.”
The Associated Press recently quoted Jeffrey Herf, an antisemitism expert at the University of Maryland, with a dire warning about Trump and antisemitism: “If (Trump) loses the 2024 election, his comments prepare the way for blaming the Jews for his defeat. The clear result would be to fan the flames of antisemitism and assert that, yet again, the Jews are guilty.”