President Biden finally spoke out against the rise in anti-Semitism on college campuses, but added complaints about “what's happening to the Palestinians.”
Meanwhile, the 18 countries whose citizens are held hostage in Gaza have finally issued a joint appeal for freedom to Hamas, but it has been tucked away in a statement regarding civilians in Gaza.
Why are our nation's leaders' statements about Jews so often weak and vague? Why can't they unequivocally condemn anti-Semites without qualification or qualification?
“President Biden said on April 22, “I condemn the anti-Semitic protests.'' For some reason I felt compelled to add this.'what do you not understand'Relations with the Palestinians continue. ”
The president's statement was an unfortunate example of moral equivalence. He was lumping together haters who engage in illegal and sometimes violent incitement with “people” who don't “get” something personally, which simply agrees with the regime in Gaza. It seems to mean people who don't.
Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip also include co-citizens from 18 countries. It took six months for these governments to finally issue statements regarding the illegal imprisonment of their citizens. The statement they ultimately produced was woefully inadequate.
Their statement began by calling for “the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.” Then, far from leaving it alone, the 18 countries immediately linked the hostages to “the fate of civilians in Gaza,” as if an individual who happened to be near a combat zone was equivalent to an individual taken hostage by terrorists. I did.
Most of the rest of the statement concerned Gazans rather than hostages. The report highlighted the rewards the international community is offering Hamas, including a ceasefire and a “surge in humanitarian aid” in exchange for the release of prisoners.
These deeply flawed statements are painfully reminiscent of statements made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Holocaust. For example, his belated condemnation of the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom did not identify the victims as Jews, nor did he name the perpetrators as Nazis or Germans.
When the United States invited 32 countries to participate in a conference on Jewish refugee issues held in Evian, France in 1938, Jews were not mentioned. They were called “political refugees.” Five years later, even as the genocide of Europe's Jews was underway, President Roosevelt announced the holding of another refugee conference, this time to be held in Bermuda, and warned that the discussion would not focus on “specific races or He emphasized that it is not limited to people of faith.
Presidential statements on war crimes repeatedly omitted mention of the most serious and systematic war crimes. For example, in a press conference on August 21, 1942, FDR generally noted: “A barbaric crime against civilians.” “Hostage shootings are not limited to France; most recently, five or six important citizens were shot dead in the Netherlands, and a number of hostages were shot dead in Norway. ”
In a statement dated October 7, 1942, the president promised that the United States would help establish a war crimes commission, but gave no explanation as to which war crimes were being committed and against whom. Similarly, in a July 30, 1943 statement, Roosevelt stated that the Allies: “Information and evidence about barbaric crimes in Europe and Asia will force the instigators of those crimes to face court and answer for their actions. ” The president did not believe that the plight of the Jews deserved special mention, much less any special action.
Ironically, American Jewish leaders rabbi When Stephen S. Wise asked the president in August 1943 to make a public statement about the genocide of the Jews, FDR responded by citing these three statements as evidence that the president had already spoken.
roosevelt'The omission of Jews served a specific political purpose. He and his aides believed that too much focus on the genocide of the Jews—as a senior State Department official, R. “This will open the door for them to receive it,” he said. ” That is, “actionopening America etc.'Opening the door to more Jewish refugees was strongly opposed by President Roosevelt.
Of course, not all presidential rejections of Jews are politically motivated. President Barack Obama's omission of Jews from the details of the Hanukkah story in 2015, similar to President Donald Trump's failure to mention Jews in his 2017 Holocaust remembrance statement, was likely due to the influence of young speechwriters. It was nothing but a careless mistake.
However, political considerations are often an important factor. Roosevelt had Roosevelt things, and today's leaders have Roosevelt things. The 18 countries that signed the mixed message on hostages are likely concerned that Palestinian terrorists will attack them if they appear too sympathetic to Israel. As for President Biden, he seems to have made the cynical calculation of embracing the Palestinian-Arab cause in an election year, hoping that his supporters will embrace him in November.
Dr. Medoff He is the founding director of the David S. Wyman Holocaust Research Institute and the author of more than 20 books on Jewish history and the Holocaust. His latest work is Whistleblowers: Four people who fought to expose the Holocaust to America, A non-fiction graphic novel in collaboration with artist Dean Motter, published by Dark Horse/Yo Books.
