CAMERA Op-Ed: The U.S. State Department and Antisemitism
On April 12, 2022, the State Department published its 2021 “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Israel, West Bank and Gaza.” As the Jewish Insider, among others, noted, the document relied extensively on Amnesty International, an NGO that has accused Israel of “apartheid.” But as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has highlighted, Amnesty’s accusations are steeped in shoddy research, double standards, and baseless claims.
The head of Amnesty’s US office, Paul O’Brien, has said that the organization is opposed to the existence of the world’s sole Jewish state. And, as NGO Monitor and CAMERA have documented, several Amnesty employees have made antisemitic comments and openly supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which singles out Israel for opprobrium and seeks its destruction.
In February 2022, the US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, even called Amnesty’s libel “absurd.”
Yet, none of this stopped the State Department from citing Amnesty. Indeed, in some quarters, it may have recommended it.
The American foreign service, it must be said, is filled with hardworking and talented professionals who, no doubt, reject hate in all its forms. There is no evidence to suggest that the majority hold views that are anti-Israel or even antisemitic. One must not paint with a broad brush. But there is evidence to suggest that anti-Israel bias, and even antisemitism, isn’t foreign to the US diplomatic corps. There was replete evidence of antisemitism during much of the 20th century, but it certainly still exists today.
One State Department official even has ties to an organization that propagates antisemitism. As the Washington Free Beacon reported in February 2021, the then-nominee for the post of Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights, Uzra Zeya, had previously worked for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA). As a WRMEA staffer, Zeya had helped compile research for a book that argues that “the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of US Middle East policy.”
Accusations of undue and pernicious Jewish power meet the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by numerous governments and entities—including the US State Department. She was later confirmed to her position.
As CAMERA highlighted, WRMEA has, among other things, implied that Israel was connected to the JFK assassination and the Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, and has published books with chapters that warn about “Jewish Power in the Formulation of US Middle East Policy.”
WRMEA has also accused Israel of profiting from the sale of human organs — a modern-day incarnation of the antisemitic blood libel.
US insists it’s committed to reopening consulate after officials tell ToI otherwise
The US is still committed to reopening its consulate in Jerusalem, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday, after US and Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel otherwise.Gil Troy: Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s Silence Openly Approves Violence Against Jews
During a press briefing, Price was asked to respond to a Sunday Times of Israel report revealing that the Biden administration has settled on a number of steps aimed at boosting ties with the Palestinians in lieu of reopening the US Consulate in Jerusalem.
Price did not deny the report, but insisted that the US is still “committed to [re]opening a consulate in Jerusalem” — a line Biden officials have reiterated dozens of times since Secretary of State Antony Blinken first made the announcement over a year ago. The Israeli government has pushed back against the move, arguing that it is an encroachment on its sovereignty, and Washington has subsequently held off on the step, not wanting to engage in a fight with its Israeli allies.
“We continue to believe [reopening the consulate] can be an important way for our country to engage with and provide support to the Palestinian people. We’re continuing to discuss this with our Israeli and Palestinian partners and will continue to come up to consult with members of Congress as well,” Price said, refusing once again to offer a timeline for when Blinken’s pledge might be seen through.
“Meanwhile, at this very moment, we have a dedicated team of colleagues working in Jerusalem in our Palestinian Affairs [Unit] focused on engagement with an outreach to the Palestinian people,” he added, acknowledging that “there are some… unique sensitivities to [reopening] this particular facility.”
According to two US and Palestinian officials who spoke to The Times of Israel last week, US President Joe Biden will elevate Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr to the role of special envoy to the Palestinians. Amr will remain in Washington but will make regular trips to the region and work closely with the Palestinian Affairs Unit (PAU), which currently is a branch within the US Embassy to Israel and is housed in the old Jerusalem consulate building.
In an America wracked by violence, apparently it is okay to call people out to “fight with stones … fight with guns … fight with planes, drones, and rockets,” as long as the targets are Jews, and you end your call for bloodshed with those magic, cleansing words: “Free, free Palestine.”
That certainly is the impression Representative Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan Democrat, left by her silence on May 15 at a Dearborn “Nakba Day” rally she attended.
During the rally, the publisher of the Arab American News — Osama Siblani, clad jarringly in a fashionable Boss shirt — was not subtle at all in blessing the bloody, horrific axe murders, knifings, and shootings in Israel that have killed nearly 20 in the last few months — including fellow Arabs, although I count all the victims of terrorism as innocent, be they Jews or Arabs, Ukrainians or Druze.
“Do you see what is happening in Palestine?” he said. “They are striking them with their knives and with their bare hands, and they are victorious.”
Lovely. Some victory.
What kind of victory is it when a Palestinian in B’nai Brak aims at a two-year-old, but the dad turns the attempted infanticide into a mere homicide by throwing his body between the murderer and his toddler?
What kind of victory is it when that same shooter kills a Christian-Arab police officer with a Jewish girlfriend, who was probably doing more to cross lines and build bridges in the Middle East than the entire US Congress?
And what kind of victory is it when two Palestinians, using the same Jewish driver they have used before to get to work, pull out axes in Elad and start smashing his skull and others’ — murdering the driver and two other dads, while leaving others with shattered skulls housing wounds that will torment them for the rest of their lives?
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib at 2021 Nakba Day Rally in Dearborn, MI: We Have the Right to Fight Against Israeli Apartheid (Archival) #Palestinians @RashidaTlaib pic.twitter.com/LgNdhGETTf
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 31, 2022
