Monday on “CNN Newsroom,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) addressed his recent call to progressive members of his caucus to quit referring to Israel as a “terrorist state” or an “apartheid state.”
Phillips argued that much like former President Donald Trump and others calling the coronavirus the “China flu” led to violence directed toward Asian-Americans, condemning Israel in its conflict with Hamas was resulting in a rise in antisemitism. He asked his fellow progressives to help stem the antisemitic rhetoric in villanizing Israel.
“[J]ust as the former president called COVID the China flu, which provoked attacks on Asian-Americans, calling Israel a terrorist state or an apartheid state, you know, to me is doing the same thing to the Jewish community which has been persecuted for so many generations, and it’s time to stand up and ask my progressive friends and colleagues and brothers and sisters to recognize what is at stake here, and to look back in history, not long ago, in Germany, where Jewish people felt as safe as they do in America right now, but these are the signs and signals that are very disconcerting for the community,” Phillips outlined. “And I feel an obligation to point that out and not condemn but invite my progressive colleagues to help us.”
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