On anti-Semitic & anti-American sentiment.
It was no surprise that the U.S. government threw its support behind Israel following the terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens on October 7. President Biden quickly defended Israel, declared himself to be a Zionist, and visited the country within days of the attacks. Republicans and Democrats lined up in near-unanimous support for the Jewish state, pledging moral, political, and military support for Israel’s expected retaliation against strongholds in Gaza. This has been a long-standing pattern since the United States formed its alliance with Israel in the 1960s, and has been sustained since that time through a series of wars and terrorist attacks in the region.
But few expected the eruption of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses and large cities across America in the days and weeks following those attacks. Students on campuses from Harvard and Yale to Michigan and Berkeley marched and signed petitions in support of the Palestinian cause, calling for the elimination of the state of Israel, while ignoring the wanton killing of more than 1,400 Israelis in the attacks. Thousands took to the streets with the same message in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and other cities. A dozen or so members of Congress, nearly all progressive Democrats and affiliated with the left-wing “squad” in the House of Representatives, voted against a resolution to support Israel in the escalating conflict.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The New Criterion
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James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
