Last month, the
White House
announced it was putting together an interagency group to address rising antisemitism. The announcement, which came by way of a short statement released by press secretary
Karine Jean-Pierre
, is a welcome one — and long overdue.
Antisemitic attacks
have been on the rise in recent years. According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic attacks in America increased 34% in 2021, reaching their highest levels since the group began collecting data in 1979, even though such incidents are
underreported by the FBI
. The trend continued in 2022, including a number of high-profile incidents, such as NBA star Kyrie Irving’s support for Holocaust denialism and insensitive, reductive on-air remarks by Whoopi Goldberg, to say nothing of the multiple antisemitic rants by Kanye West. The problem warrants Washington’s attention, and it has for some time.
But several things about this announcement give me pause, leaving me less than confident that it reflects a sincere commitment by the Biden administration to address a significant problem.
First, the timing is conspicuous. Why did Biden’s team wait almost two years before even expressing an intent to address it? This announcement and the listening session led by the vice president’s spouse, Doug Emhoff, came right after former President Donald Trump hosted West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at dinner. This suggests that the White House’s newfound attentiveness to antisemitism was driven by partisan opportunism more than out of a sense of urgency created by a crescendo of anti-Jewish hate.
Second, both the method of the announcement and whom the White House has presented as the champions of this cause signal a less-than-full commitment to addressing an “epidemic of hate.” By releasing a press statement rather than announcing an interagency initiative with its leaders at a live event, the White House undercut the impact of Biden’s decision. Biden’s removal from the initiative is also telling, as is the conspicuous inclusion of “Islamophobia and related forms of violence” in the charter of this new ad hoc organization. This dilution is reminiscent of the kind of politically correct hand-wringing that turned a past House resolution against antisemitism into a
watered-down condemnation
of “hateful expressions of intolerance.”
Third, the orchestration of a roundtable led by Emhoff was yet another signal this will not be a top-tier issue. And while I commend Emhoff himself for courageously and forcefully speaking against purveyors of hate, his leadership sustains the precedent of putting the onus for combating antisemitism on Jews. As Emhoff recognized, it is in fact everyone’s “obligation to condemn these vile acts,” not just those who are targeted. Indeed, it’s this very idea that animates the effort I lead at the Philos Action League to stand in solidarity with our Jewish friends and neighbors.
Finally, I’m concerned with how the White House has decided to organize this important enterprise. The interagency group will be “led” by both Domestic Policy Council and National Security Council staff. As a general rule, dispersed leadership lends itself to gridlock and internecine squabbles when the urgency of the situation calls for clear and decisive action now. Nor am I reassured by the president’s call for the group’s first order of business to be the development of a national strategy to counter antisemitism. The administration’s track record here is not stellar: 22 months elapsed before it released its congressionally mandated National Security Strategy.
The Biden team has taken an important and necessary first step. It is my sincere hope that the president’s antisemitism task force will move forward urgently with the full weight of the U.S. government and not become merely a virtue-signaling exercise with plans and pronouncements with no action. I also hope that it will not become polarized and morph into a mechanism to attack the Right. The evidence clearly shows that antisemitism emanates from both sides of the political spectrum. To confront it, we must all, including the president himself, stand against antisemitism whenever and wherever it occurs.
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Luke Moon is the deputy director of the Philos Project and director of the Philos Action League.
