As Israel's war with Hamas dominates the news cycle, antisemitism in America has joined it the headlines.
But the trend did not begin with Hamas' bloody attacks on October 7.
Since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking antisemitic attacks in 1979, the highest level on record was reached in 2022, when incidents involving assault, vandalism, and harassment increased by more than 33%.
This month, especially since Israel's subsequent bombing campaign of specific targets in Hamas-controlled Gaza, hate for Jews has been more visible.
Palestinian flag-waving throngs have gathered on college campuses and in urban centers.
A demonstration at the University of Washington brought a young Jewish student to tears. Feeling threatened, she pled for an administrator to stop the pro-Palestinian campus rally. "They want our people dead," she cried.
Alumni and donors at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania have criticized the Ivy League schools for failing to do enough to protect Jewish students, some of whom locked themselves in their rooms amid the "threatening" pro-Palestinian protests.
In New York, Bari Weiss, a prominent Jewish journalist, was targeted by vandals who defaced the walls outside the offices of The Free Press, the investigative news outlet she founded.
White House misses signs of antisemitism – at first
"We have not seen any credible threats," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters this week before turning the question she was asked about antisemitism into an opportunity to talk about the plight of Muslims in the U.S.
"Muslim and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks, and certainly President Biden understands that many of our Muslim Arab-Americans and Palestinian-American loved ones and neighbors are worried about the hate being directed at their communities," she stated.
A day later, Jean-Pierre expanded her care to include Jewish Americans.
"I want to make something clear at the top, because I understand how important moral clarity is, especially at this time," she began. "When Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism, and that is unacceptable."
"There is no place for antisemitism," the press secretary continued. "This is important to the president, it's important to me personally, and it's important to everyone in the administration."
But on Washington Watch on Tuesday, Rabbi Yaakov Menken pointed out that the pro-terrorist activity is "not just antisemitic; it's anti-civilization."
"Everybody understands that something like rape, for example, can never be justified. As soon as you try to contextualize the rape, it's obvious that the individual doing so is a barbarian, that that is evil, despicable. There are no two ways about it," he posed. "Over here, you have people justifying rape on a mass scale that also included crimes like beheading – not only beheading soldiers, but beheading babies – and violence against not only women, but the elderly and children."
"When you find people marching in favor of all that, you definitely see that America now has a problem," Rabbi Menken reasoned.
Conflicting signals
The rise in antisemitism comes amid conflicting signals from the White House's policy on Israel.
Though Joe Biden has pledged support for Israel, funding for Ukraine's ongoing war against Russia has been attached to his Israel aid request to Congress.
The administration has also condemned Hamas in the wake of the October 7 attacks, which killed more than 1,400 in Israel, but the White House has been less vocal about Iran, which has funded and trained Hamas and has supported other terrorist groups as well.
"I don't think you can be pro-Israel and pro-Iran," Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), the leader of the effort to keep support for Israel separate from other spending, told Washington Watch Tuesday. "You have to choose one or the other."
Calling Iran "the head of the snake," he went on to point out that President Biden has empowered Iran's nuclear weapons program by unfreezing $6 billion recently, just three months after unfreezing $10 billion. And now he is allowing them to sell $1 billion of oil every week.
"Under Joe Biden, Iran's reserves have gone from $6 billion to $60 billion," Sen. Marshall stated. "This is what's happening under Joe Biden's watch. He's allowed Iran to once again to be a force, to be a power."
Many have balked at Biden's effort to tie Israel aid with more support for Ukraine, where the administration has spent more than $113 billion already.
The two wars are very different, said Marshall, who views Ukraine as a drawn-out process with few lawmakers on board.
In Israel, he said, "There's a very clear stated mission that we need to eliminate Hamas," and that is "a battle for the future of humanity."
The situation in Ukraine, however, is going to cost Americans $1 trillion, "and we don't all support it," the senator contrasted.
He said the president has "once again" found a way to take something that could unify Congress and used it to divide them instead.
