Senate Democrats have called two witnesses to a hearing on antisemitism Tuesday who are opposed to the efforts of the Jewish community to take tougher action against antisemitism.
The hearing, the first such event held in the Senate since the October 7 terror attack — after the Republican-run house has held dozens of hearings — has been generalized to include “hate crimes” of all kinds, blunting the actual issue, in an attempt to appease the Arab and Muslim communities.
But while Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has finally allowed the Senate Judiciary Committee to tackle the issue, his party has called two witnesses who actually oppose taking more action.
As the Jewish Insider reports:
Democrats, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), have called Kenneth Stern, a former Jewish communal official who opposes key steps that most mainstream Jewish groups support to combat campus antisemitism, and Maya Berry, the director of the Arab American Institute, which is deeply critical of Israel and many efforts to combat antisemitism.
…
In his opening statement to the committee, obtained by Jewish Insider ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Stern will testify that “advocating for genocide against anyone of course should be robustly condemned; but the mere expression of such ideas (whether intended as such or heard as such) should be countered, not as a matter for discipline.”
…
Meanwhile, the Arab American Institute, of which Berry is the executive director, accused Israel on Oct. 15, 2023, a week after the Oct. 7 attack, of “ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” and demanded a cease-fire. The group supports boycotts of Israel.
The Republicans have called Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, who has pushed for the widespread adoption of a definition of antisemitism that includes extreme anti-Israel hatred.
The hearing will be held at 10:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, September 17.
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 Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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