Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, slammed President Joe Biden Monday for an “antisemitism summit” that excludes conservative groups.
The “roundtable,” to be held Wednesday, will be chaired by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, and will discuss the threat of antisemitism in the wake of Kanye West’s recent remarks, amid other incidents.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — who has a history of anti-Israel statements — said Monday that the summit “will include leaders of Jewish organizations fighting antisemitism that represents the wide range of Jewish community from students to seniors, and including Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox denominations.” (The “Conservative” denomination is semi-traditional, and is not politically conservative.)
ZOA’s Klein pointed out that his group, among others on the political right, had been excluded — despite the fact that ZOA has helped to lead the fight against antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere. He added:
The White House is hiding the list of invitees, because ZOA is not on it and neither are any other groups who have criticized left-wing antisemitism and Biden’s hostile to Israel policies and appointments such as the Coalition for Jewish Values or the Jewish Leadership Project. It’s obvious that this is nothing but a partisan event exploiting Jew-hatred and punishing critics of the Administration’s Mideast policies and that the administration and Democrats are using Jews as cudgel to beat their political opponents.
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Antisemitism is possibly the one position right-wing and left-wing extremists agree on and politicizing the suffering of the Jewish people is inexcusable. ZOA has been the leading pro-Israel organization since a half century before the founding of the modern Jewish state. We led the campaign for including Jewish students under the protections of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act; in fact, we were alone for much of that battle. ZOA is a strictly non-partisan organization that fights Jew-hatred regardless of its source. The White House should as well.
Klein and ZOA recently gave an award to former President Trump for his work on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people; however, Klein later criticized Trump for a dinner with Kanye West and other antisemites.
The summit will also include Ambassador Susan Rice — who helped shape the anti-Israel policies of Barack Obama’s administration; antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, who defended comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler; and former Atlanta mayor-turned-presidential advisor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Jean-Pierre added that Emhoff, the first Jewish person in his role, took a personal interest in the summit because “he is in pain.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.