|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
It features “more than 100 executive branch actions and more than 100 calls to action to every sector of society to prevent and address such violent attacks and to ensure that Muslim and Arab Americans enjoy the liberties and opportunities that are the bedrock of our country,” per the White House.
Although a search for “Jew” returns 40 results in the strategy and “antisemitism” yields 44 results and “antisemitic” 12 results, the White House does not state in the press release or the 67-page document that any U.S. Jewish groups were involved in the strategy.
After the White House unveiled its “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” on May 25, 2023, the Biden administration listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations as a contributor. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) told JNS at the time that he was “disappointed and appalled that CAIR—an organization that has peddled antisemitic tropes and has ties to extremist, anti-Israel groups—played any role in the U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism.”
Months later, shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, CAIR blamed the Jewish state for being attacked. By December, the White House had scrubbed references to CAIR from the antisemitism strategy, although archived versions of the original page remain available online.
Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS that he is not surprised that the White House didn’t contact the ZOA about the new strategy on Islamophobia.
ZOA has criticized the “Biden-Obama regime regularly for four years on their hostile to Israel appointments, their hostile to Israel policies and their intentionally strengthening Iran enabling them to more readily harm Israel,” Klein told JNS.
“It is clear that Obama’s influence is a major factor in the Biden administration’s actions toward Israel and Iran and Muslims,” Klein said.
The ZOA leader told JNS that he doesn’t believe there is “a real Islamophobia, which means an irrational fear of or hostility to Islam.”
“In fact, due to the disproportionate involvement in terrorism by radical Muslims and their overt enmity toward Jews and the Jewish state, it is rational and understandable for Jews and others to feel a deep concern about Islam and some Muslims,” Klein said.
“A disproportionate number of those attacking Jews and Israel on campuses are Muslims,” he added. “The attacks on Jews in Amsterdam, France, Germany and England are disproportionately perpetrated by Muslims. Islamist actions have made it clear that President Bush was wrong when he called Islam a ‘religion of peace.’”
CAIR stated after the White House’s recent release of the Islamophobia strategy that it was “too little, too late.” It also called U.S. President Joe Biden “a mass murderer of Muslims.”
The American Jewish Committee welcomed the new White House strategy.
“Appropriately and laudably, the recently released U.S. Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Hate references the Strategy to Counter Antisemitism,” it said. “Just as the antisemitism strategy outlined action items that protect all minorities, we welcome the recommendations in this latest strategy as best practices to ensure Muslim and Arab Americans are protected as part of the social fabric of our society.”
