During a portion of an interview with CNN Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash set to air on Sunday that was released on Friday, Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, said that the reaction to antisemitism has been one that “would have been so inappropriate” if it was about the murder of George Floyd or other forms of bigotry and that the whataboutism responses have rationalized and/or justified antisemitism to a degree.
Lipstadt stated, “When you encounter an act of prejudice, call it out for what it is. When George Floyd was murdered, it would have been so inappropriate to say, we condemn the racism that was behind this and the homophobia and the antisemitism. But, somehow, when it comes to antisemitism, it couldn’t be called out on its own. It couldn’t stand on its own.”
Bash then asked, “Well, what does the whataboutism do?”
Lipstadt answered, “It dilutes, it — and it, to a certain degree, it rationalizes and/or justifies. I want to be — also want to be exactly clear, criticism of Israeli policy is not antisemitism. But when you question the right of Jews to a national identity, when you question the existence of a Jewish state, you’ve moved beyond the political.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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