Here they go again. The members of the United States House of Representatives are set to vote Tuesday on another resolution listing off statistics purportedly demonstrating very high and growing amounts of antisemitism in America.
Those claims are bunk. But that will not stop the vast majority of House members from voting for this resolution just like happened two years ago when the same resolution, sponsored then as now by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), was considered in the House.
In June of 2024, I wrote about the bogus antisemitism claims in H.Res. 1215. Antisemitism claims in that resolution, as with the resolution to be voted on this week, were inflated by including in “antisemitism” speaking or acting in opposition to the Israel government, either in general or in relation to a particular Israel government position or action, in addition to the common understanding of the term “antisemitism” that relates to individuals’ religion or ethnicity.
That 2024 resolution passed by a vote of 371-0. While there were not any “no” votes on the 2024 resolution, a relatively high number of representatives — 59 of them — did not cast a vote. Likely, some of them sat out the vote seeing the “resolved” clauses at the end of the resolution related to opposing antisemitism and showing support for Jewish Americans, along with “whereas” clauses related to particular Jewish Americans’ accomplishments, as good or at least innocuous while recognizing the resolution also featured deceptive claims regarding antisemitism.
Among the greatest contributors to any increase in antisemitism in America under the commonly understood definition is probably the effort, including through the House resolution being considered this week, to conflate Jewish people with the Israel government. It is natural that many people will react negatively to many aspects of the Israel government, including its acts of repression and war targeting people in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, and beyond. Also objectionable to many Americans is the obsessive commitment of many US politicians, among them congressional leaders of both parties, to using US resources to advance the interests of the Israel government. Attempts to say that the Israel government, at times even deceptively called “the Jewish state,” is inextricably tied to people of Jewish faith or ancestry is a recipe for generating more old-time antisemitism among Americans.
