Analysis

In The Wake Of Anti-Semitic Assaults, Democrats Call Out Islamophobia

REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Michael Ginsberg Congressional Correspondent
Font Size:

Following a wave of assaults on visibly Jewish people in major American cities, progressive Democrats declared that they opposed anti-Semitism, and also, Islamophobia.

New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Illinois Rep. Marie Newman, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush all condemned anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, also joined them.

Their comments were in response to a series of anti-Semitic attacks. The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged a Brooklyn man on May 22 after he allegedly set a yeshiva and synagogue on fire on May 19. He also assaulted a Hasidic man, the DOJ alleged. A Jewish man was beaten in Times Square by pro-Palestinian activists on May 20, while other activists threw fireworks at Jews in the Diamond District.

Despite the rampant condemnations of Islamophobia, the New York Police Department reported only one anti-Muslim hate crime during the first three months of 2021.

In the last two weeks of May, however, the Anti-Defamation League reported a 75% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes.

As a result, some commentators linked the sloganeering to the phrase “All Lives Matter,” which many progressive activists condemn as insensitive to African Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement. They argue that the phrase “All Lives Matter” detracts from the specific issues impacting the African American community.

“This conflation of anti-Semitism with Islamophobia is more malevolent than it appears,” former Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind wrote in National Review. “For not only do those attempting this rhetorical trick wish to avoid pointing fingers at anyone who can’t be called a white supremacist. Their goal is also to deny outright that there is a particularly hateful strain of anti-Jewish ideology in pro-Palestinian advocacy.”

“The same representatives who get angry when they hear ‘but All Lives Matter’ in response to Black Lives Matter are essentially telling us all that Jewish lives don’t.”

Four congressional Democrats explicitly called out progressive members of their party for “accusing Israel of being an ‘apartheid state’ and committing ‘act[s] of terrorism,” which they described as “anti-Semitic at their core,” in a letter to President Joe Biden. (RELATED: Tlaib And Sanders Ally Tells People ‘Don’t Condemn Sh*t’ On Anti-Semitism)

Biden later described the attacks as “despicable” in a May 24 tweet. “I condemn this hateful behavior at home and abroad — it’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor,” he said.

Some critics claimed that he took too long to speak out, however. Biden’s previous silence was “disappointing and a missed opportunity,” John Hannah, senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and former security adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney, told the Daily Caller at the time.

“Anti-Semitism is too dangerous to be politicized,” Senior Research Analyst Sean Durns of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) told the Daily Caller. “It’s incumbent for press and politicians alike to call it out irrespective of who is perpetrating it.” 

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel