With the war itself increasingly unpopular, the focus has turned to a war about language
On Dec. 5, as the number of children killed by Israel in Gaza approached 10,000, and a Data For Progress poll found 61-28 support for a permanent ceasefire, the House of Representatives told a big lie. It passed a resolution equating antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Given that many Jews are or could be called anti-Zionist — a label often used to attack anyone criticizing Israel — it was clearly an absurdity.
While it was headlined as a resolution condemning antisemitism, Manhattan representative Jerry Nadler, the longest-serving Jew in the House, denounced it as “another partisan gotcha game” that “does absolutely nothing to genuinely counter the scourge of antisemitism, nor does it help bring us together with the unity of purpose that this topic merits.”
In fact, Nadler pointed out that in his three decades in Congress, “I have never seen an antisemitism-focused vehicle come to the floor without the co-sponsorship of a single member of the minority party.” This was hardly surprising, he went on to say:
If our friends on the other side of the aisle were serious about combating antisemitism, they would have spoken up when former President Trump called the Nazis in Charlottesville “very fine people.” They would have condemned the former president when he dined with known Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Chairman Jordan would have thought better before tweeting out “Kanye, Elon, Trump,” sending out dog whistles to their white supremacist antisemitic base.
While there certainly has been a rise in antisemitism, there’s been a rise in Islamophobia as well. And the vast majority of those calling for peace oppose both of them. On Dec. 12, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a cease-fire: 153 for, 10 against, 23 abstaining. Only one NATO ally — the Czech Republic — joined the U.S. in voting no. Here in the U.S., Data For Progress found that “Sixty-one percent of likely voters, including a majority of Democrats (76%) and Independents (57%) and a plurality of Republicans (49%), support the U.S. calling for a permanent ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza.”
The biggest divide isn’t between Democratic and Republican voters, but between voters and politicians. And no one is more cognizant of that divide than staffers who deal with the public. In mid-October, more than 400 Jewish and Muslim staffers signed onto a letter calling for a ceasefire. Three weeks later more than 100 congressional staffers staged a walkout demanding their bosses back a ceasefire. Then, on Dec. 13, more than three dozen Joe Biden staffers, political appointees and civil service career staff, attended the early evening vigil in front of the White House calling for a cease-fire.
A key battleline against the growing opposition to war is the control of language, which is what the Dec. 5 vote was all about. As Nadler went on to note, there were concrete things Congress could do to actually fight antisemitism in the real world, but Republicans either oppose or are indifferent to them.
The gotcha game was also on display in a Congressional hearing on campus antisemitism with three university presidents, including Claudine Gay — Harvard University’s first black president. Taking a lead role was the GOP’s third-ranking House leader, Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has previously run Facebook ads promoting a version of the antisemitic great replacement theory, which misconstrues immigration as an invasion masterminded by globalist (aka Jewish) elites.
Gay, like the other two university presidents, was trying to explain and defend the complex balancing universities often face in defending intellectual freedom during times of cultural conflict and strife. Stefanik, a promoter of such strife, was trying to play her own opposite. In questioning Gay, Stefanik said, “You understand that the use of the term ‘intifada’ in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?” And she asked, “Will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say ‘from the river to the sea’ or ‘intifada,’ advocating for the murder of Jews.”
But Stefanik was just gaslighting. Intifada is not “a call for armed resistance.” Intifada literally means “shaking off,” and has been used politically like “uprising,” as in a people “shaking off” an oppressive regime. It’s been used in uprisings against Muslim oppressors as well as Israel, and the first Palestinian Intifada was overwhelmingly non-violent. What’s more, there’s a 22-year-old online publication, “The Electronic Intifada,” whose name makes perfect sense in light of intifada’s true meaning, but would be incoherent if Stefanik were correct.
Similarly, “from the river to the sea” isn’t a call for genocide, but for an end to the apartheid system Palestinians have lived under for generations. It gained popularity in the 1960s as a call for returning to the borders under British control of Palestine, the original form of the “two state solution.” Because it’s so popular, Hamas has adopted it as a slogan, too. But to let Hamas hijack its meaning is to give them aid and comfort — which is precisely what Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies have done for decades, precisely to weaken those whose intentions are peaceful and just.
Stefanik, too, gives Hamas aid and comfort. She and her kind are the true antisemites, trying to gaslight all the rest of us.