In a November letter to Harvard President Claudine Gay, hedge fund billionaire and longtime donor Bill Ackman decried hateful anti-Israel acts some of that college’s students had perpetrated.
Harvard and many other places of higher learning had seen mobs of antisemitic students rallying against Israel.
“History has taught us that when the sparks and initial flames of antisemitism emerge, we must promptly put out the flames before a conflagration begins,” Ackman wrote. He condemned Harvard’s failure to protect Jewish students.
The pernicious anti-Jewish bigotry that threatens globally has Iowa-related manifestations.
A November four article in the Iowa Capitol Dispatch: “University of Iowa students hold pro-Palestine protest calling for justice, peace,” noted that over 100 UI students had attended the Israel-blaming event.
“Many wore keffiyehs, a type of Palestinian scarf, as they protested,” the writer observed. Perhaps owing to sympathy for the mob, she did not mention that the keffiyeh is favored by Hamas terrorists.
But the scourge of antisemitism is not confined to wet-eared kids and activists posing as reporters. That vile bigotry is also encouraged by errant elected officials.
News readers are doubtlessly familiar with Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s many anti-Jewish statements. She’s referred to “apartheid Israel,” and repeatedly accused that nation’s people of “genocide.”
In early October, Tlaib tweeted: “Israel just bombed the Baptist hospital killing 500 civilians (children, doctors, patients) just like that.”
Though it was subsequently determined that, in fact, a Palestinian Hamas barrage had misfired and destroyed a neighboring parking lot, Tlaib refused to apologize or delete her dishonest missive.
Here’s the Iowa link:
When Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced an October motion censuring Tlaib, every Democrat (and 23 Republicans) voted to table the motion. Iowa’s own Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks joined them, and the motion failed.
It is to Miller-Meeks’s credit, though, that she issued a November three statement denouncing Tlaib.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, she wrote: “Today, I cosponsored Rep. McCormick’s resolution to censure Rep. Tlaib that protects the 1st Amendment while condemning her past antisemitic action, anti-Israel remarks, and spewing of hate.”
And when Greene subsequently reintroduced her motion (having removed “insurrection”). it was supported by all of Iowa’s representatives. Including Miller-Meeks.
“I kept my promise, recognized Israel’s eternal capitol, and opened the American Embassy in Jerusalam,” Donald Trump reminded Cedar Rapids attendees at his December second rally, there. “I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“So horrible, what’s happening in the last six weeks,” he continued. “Think of it: You go back three months, four months, but go back three years. This is an impossible…This would have never happened, what happened — the attack on Israel.”
And during his Sioux City rally the previous month, Trump was adamant. “All of the resident aliens who joined in pro-jihadist rallies all over this country…Come 2025, you’ll find that we will deport you because these are people that are against our country.”
His strong sentiments offered hope for Iowans who would see hate repelled from our nation. One benefit derived from January 15 Iowa caucus support for Trump is that it would constitute a broadside against antisemitic terrorism.
We Iowans need to follow Bill Ackman’s example.
- DC Larson
Waterloo writer DC Larson counts among freelance credits Daily Caller, American Thinker, and Western Journal. He is also the author of Ideas Afoot (Bromley Street Books)
DC never fails to be thought provoking. We, and the world, were much safer under Trump – that cannot be denied. The anti-Semitism that is erupting is troubling enough. It is shocking to realize it has erupted because Israel was attacked and [shock!] is defending itself!