Although attendees at the Democrat convention responded with appropriate empathy when they heard a speech from the parents of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old man who was at the October 7th Nova festival in Israel, the fact remains that the Harris-Biden administration and the Democrat party have been consistently hostile to Israel.
No one can begin to comprehend the anguish Hersh’s parents must feel. It’s been 326 days since Hamas kidnapped him, and his parents still do not know his whereabouts or status. How can another human being not empathize with their pain and sorrow and those of the other hostages still held by Hamas? How can one not admire the fortitude of Hersh’s parents?
At the convention, Hersh’s parents spoke of the precious lives of those brutally murdered and tortured and still in Hamas’s hands. Democrat delegates were shown weeping. Hersh’s parents said this was “not a political issue but rather a humanitarian issue,” and they were “deeply grateful” to Harris and Biden for meeting with them.
DNC attendee when Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents spoke (cropped). YouTube screengrab.
They also added that “in an inflamed Middle East, we know the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region is a deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza” [emphasis mine]. I cannot escape the feeling that this attempt to be ecumenical fed into the Iranian/Hamas playbook and did nothing to shift the Democrat party’s growing anti-Israel animus.
The following information is factual. It highlights the Harris-Biden administration’s approach to Israel and Jews.
The facts highlight the ongoing anti-Semitism of the Democrat party, whether it emanates from Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Keith Ellison, or Barack Obama. It has been building for decades.
- Biden threatens to veto aid to Israel.
- House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and most House Democrats voted against the Israel aid bill.
- Many of Biden’s Democrat party elected officials use anti-Semitic verbiage masquerading as anti-Zionism.
- Antisemitism was on full display at the 2020 Democratic convention where Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory were featured speakers.
- Biden has imposed an academic boycott on Israeli institutions beyond the Green Line.
In fact, the Harris-Biden administration, by snubbing Netanyahu, “is giving the Ayatollahs of Iran and their proxies, particularly the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, the confidence to challenge Israel by having its operatives set up tents on Israeli territory.”
The Democrat party platform’s support for Israel is simply vanishing:
There has been a steady erosion of support for the Jewish state, as phrase after phrase of support once proudly expressed has disappeared — no more ‘shared values and ‘common interests’ and praise for the ‘only democracy in the region’ — [instead] we have today’s bland statement of lukewarm support that is little different from that offered to any other country in the world.
Kamala Harris has denounced the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attack on Hamas’s command-and-control center by citing civilian casualties, data that came the terrorist group Hamas!
The star of the Democratic Convention, Barack Obama, has long maintained cover for the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama
- cosponsored a United Nations resolution in 2009 imposing ‘shariah blasphemy’ laws that utterly conflicted with America’s First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
- appointed a sharia finance specialist to the White House to influence American banking transactions to comply with sharia law.
- endorsed the mosque on property where the World Trade Center’s twin towers once stood.
- associated with known Muslim Brotherhood front groups like Ingrid Mattson of the Islamic Society of North America and Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
More recently, Biden had a choice to forcefully denounce the anti-Jewish hatred spewing from his political party. Instead, he chose to worry about Michigan Muslim voters while Jewish college students were being intimidated by pro-Hamas supporters.
Biden pressured Israel not to respond after Hezbollah terror rocket attacks killed twelve Druze children.
And, of course, Biden keeps handing over billions of dollars to Iran, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
Harris shows the same anti-Semitic predilection.
- In July 2016, Harris appeared at a Ramadan event at the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC), . . .whose founders had expressed support for Islamic terrorism. At this ICSC event, Harris passionately denounced ‘Islamophobia.’
- Harris has long supported the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
- After Rep. Ilhan Omar‘s widely publicized, anti-Semitic ‘Benjamins‘ comment in February 2019, Harris, who was then a senator, defended Omar, touting the threat of ‘Islamophobia.’
- Harris saying that the Jewish state had killed ‘too many innocent Palestinians’ and ‘must do more to protect innocent civilians.’
- Harris has repeatedly thrown her support behind anti-Israel protesters in America, saying they show ‘exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza.’ Such comments are driving ‘optimism’ among anti-Israel elements in the Democrat party [.]
- In 2021, Harris was videotaped nodding along as a student accused Israel of ‘ethnic genocide’ against the Palestinians and condemned American funding to the Jewish state.
- Following a June raid in Gaza that freed four Israeli hostages, Harris stated that ‘[w]e have been working every day to bring an end to this conflict in a way that ensures Israel is secure, brings home all hostages, ends ongoing suffering for Palestinian people and ensures that Palestinians can enjoy their right to self- determination, dignity and freedom.’ She never talks about the suffering of Israelis or the fact that Hamas caused the suffering of the Gazans in the first place.
- Harris has repeatedly accused Israel of withholding humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, even as unprecedented amounts of food and other goods make their way into the territory.
- Harris described the situation as a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ and claimed that ‘people in Gaza are starving’ as a result of Israel’s policies. Yet, it is Hamas, not Israel, that is causing the catastrophe.
Kamala Harris’ animus is clear.
In addition, Harris’ national security adviser, and possible future secretary of state Philip Gordon wrote a book that was a “blueprint of the policies the Obama administration adopted, including blaming America and Israel, appeasing Iran and Islamists and making Muslims feel better about themselves.”
In essence, “[t]hese are the building blocks of the policies that led us to Oct. 7 and an Iranian war across the region.”
“Harris’s stance on Israel and its war conduct is already generating concerns in the Jewish political world, with the Republican Jewish Coalition painting the likely Democratic nominee as ‘far worse’ than Biden.
‘If you thought Joe Biden was bad on the issues of top concern to the Jewish community, Kamala Harris is far worse,’ Sam Markstein, the coalition’s national political director, told the Washington Free Beacon. ‘Kamala Harris owns the disastrous and failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration, which has overseen a shocking spike in antisemitism and an unprecedented degradation of the U.S.-Israel relationship.’
Moreover, the media barely expresses a critical tone toward Hamas and few take them to task for failing to be honest journalists. In fact, there are other voices from Gaza who despise Hamas.
Americans need to comprehend the mindset of Hamas and other Iranian proxies. Simply put:
- There can never be recognition of Israel’s right to exist.
- Jihad is the path to Israel’s destruction.
- The Jewish homeland is sacred Islamic land and not even an inch of it can be compromised.
- It should be understood that a ‘ceasefire’ in Western terms is equivalent to a hudna (truce) in Hamas’s terms. A hudna is a temporary break from war and does not indicate a desire to end it and achieve peace.
So color me suspicious when distraught parents whose concern for their son and other kidnapped individuals are showcased at the DNC. Of course, those delegates who wept were genuine in their emotions. But the hypocrisy and outright antipathy and hostility for Israel and the Jewish people cannot be glossed over. The Democrat party owns this.
I would hate to think that Hersh’s parents were used as fodder to inadvertently support the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies. But the chants “death to Israel” and “death to America” and the Democrat party’s words and actions have my antennae vibrating too much to ignore this.
Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.
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