Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted the Biden administration for imposing an anti-Israel “boycott” following its “outrageous” and “antisemitic” reversal of President Donald Trump’s policy of allowing cooperation between U.S. universities and Israeli institutions in Judea and Samaria.
In a statement released Sunday, Cruz criticized the current administration for “instating a boycott against scientific and technological cooperation with Jews living in Judea and Samaria.”
Cruz, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued that President Joe Biden and his administration officials are “pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel.”
“Since day one of their administration they have launched campaigns against our Israeli allies that are granular, whole of government, and done in secret,” he wrote.
“This new boycott of Israeli Jews is yet another example,” he continued.
According to Cruz, the move demonstrates that the State Department is “telling the entire U.S. government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria.”
“And of course it was sent to Congress in secret, and only revealed because reporters found out,” he noted.
He also contrasted the policy of the current administration that “defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party,” yet discriminates against and bans cooperation with Jews “based on where they live.”
He concluded by vowing to do “everything possible to reverse this decision,” as well as “prohibit such antisemitic discrimination by the U.S. government in the future.”
In an earlier tweet, Cruz called the move “sadly predictable but still absolutely outrageous.”
“This is brazen, explicit, obsessive discrimination against Israeli Jews based on where they live and work,” he added.
Subsequently, the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership released a statement from its National Chairman, former Sen. Norm Coleman, along with CEO Matt Brooks blasting the Biden administration’s “shortsighted” foreign policy, which it claimed “reached a new low” as a result of the decision, which they deemed “yet another example of Biden’s adherence to Obama’s anti-Israel Mideast policy.”
“Whether it is pleading with the terrorists in Tehran for a bad nuclear deal, ceding diplomatic ground in the Middle East to China, or releasing an antisemitism policy that undermines efforts to codify a clear and comprehensive definition of antisemitism, the Biden administration continues to be a delight for far-left radicals and a deep disappointment to mainstream pro-Israel supporters,” the statement reads.
The backlash follows the Biden administration’s recent reimposing of a ban prohibiting U.S. taxpayer funds going toward research and development or scientific cooperation projects conducted in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).
In 2020, Trump — continuing a series of pro-Israel measures — allowed American researchers to work with Israeli institutions across the 1949 armistice line, ending a de facto boycott that existed prior to Trump.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Judea and Samaria are part of the Jewish “ancestral homeland” to which Jews have been attached for 3,000 years and the notion of banning Jews from settling in those areas is the true “obstacle to peace.”
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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