An antisemitism task force affiliated with the Heritage Foundation announced on Thursday that it would cut ties with the conservative institution, as the prominent think tank has come under fire for its defense of Tucker Carlson after the firebrand podcaster hosted neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes for a friendly interview.The task force was formed following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and was instrumental in the drafting of Project Esther, Heritage’s signature counter-antisemitism framework released last year in response to the Biden administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism.The Project Esther report made no mention of antisemitism on the political right. In their Thursday email, the co-chairs of the task force said they can no longer ignore it.“The NTFCA will also now expand our work to fight the rising scourge of antisemitism on the Right, beyond our previous work combating the pro-Hamas movement on the Left,” wrote the co-chairs, announcing that they will co-host a conference on “Exposing & Countering Extremism and Antisemitism on the Right” on Nov. 18 in Washington, in partnership with the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel.
I had never looked at Project Esther before, and sure enough, it doesn't say a word about right-wing antisemitism.
That is insane.
Highlighting left-wing antisemitism is important. But ignoring antisemitism from the Right means that the Heritage Foundation never really cared about antisemitism at all, and only used it as an excuse to attack the Left.
I have been highly critical of the left-wing politicization of antisemitism, pretending to be against it while enabling it and using antisemitism as an excuse to attack their political enemies.
Yet that is exactly what the Heritage Foundation and their National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism were doing.
Which means that on this topic at least, the Heritage Foundation has been just as immoral in weaponizing antisemitism as Jewish Voice for Peace has been.
This is outrageous no matter which side does it.
In both cases, their faux "fight against antisemitism" also ignores antisemitism from Arabs, Muslims, Black entertainers, Nation of Islam and others who spread the virus. And, equally bad, neither side even defines antisemitism in a coherent way.
At this point, I sometimes think that I am the leading US expert on antisemitism. I came up with a definition that is clearer and better than any other. This article I wrote in April holistically explains eliminationist antisemitism of all kinds better than any analysis I've ever seen, by far.
It is bad enough that major organizations and government-backed committees cannot even figure out what different antisemites have in common to begin with. If you don't understand the problem, you cannot fix it.
I have a fix. It might take a generation to work but no one else has anything that isn't a Band-Aid. If the newly independent National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism wants to understand the problem, I'm here.
But any group that is partisan, even with the best of intentions, will continue to be blind, and use antisemitism for their own purposes.
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