As some Democrats like Squad Member and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have expressed support for the students who are protesting against Israel and many universities, a prominent Democrat lawmaker has shown strong support for the Jewish state.
Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz appeared on CNN on Monday and scorched the protests and the things that the protesters have been saying.
“Thanks for talking about this on the eve of Passover. So let me say a couple of things. First is I was at the university today and it’s clear to me that while they are establishing a perimeter outside the university, once inside the university, there is almost no security,” he said to host Abby Phillip.
“They have completely lost control of the situation and are just letting it ride, which now you’ve confirmed by this new policy that they’re just going to try to run the clock out by going fully virtual at the end of the year. I can tell you between the students wearing masks and them going full virtual, bringing back the policies of COVID is not going to slow the spread of anti-Semitism,” he said.
“But I’ll tell you what I meant when I said that on campus today. Tonight, at Passover, this was the conversation around the table. Families are together, extended families are together, and what’s going on at Columbia and what they’re watching happen now at NYU as it spreads just around the city, this is the conversation. And Jewish parents are asking this question because I talked to them whose students go to Columbia,” the lawmaker said.
“The question they’re asking is they feel that if this was a minority group, a protected minority group, which Jews are not, they don’t think that this would have gotten past lunchtime on the first day. But for Jews, because we don’t fit in this box, even though there’s only 15 million of us, you know, in the country, at the end of the day, you know, we’re looked at as differently,” he said.
“And that’s why universities have struggled with this. Because yes, while there is protected speech, free speech, hate speech is not protected. And we are well into the realm of hate speech, right? I mean, let’s just look at what’s happening. We were mad years ago when we saw Charlottesville and Jews will not replace us and Donald Trump saying good people on both sides or Mexicans are rapists, right? But somehow, we don’t have the same anger of go back to Poland?” the Democrat said.
“My grandfather’s entire family was killed in Poland. He was the sole survivor, right? All Zionists should be killed? Bomb Tel Aviv? I know the people saying this aren’t, you know, white Aryan males with tiki torches, but they have the same message,” the lawmaker said.
“These students that are participating in this, and it’s not all of them, but the students that are allowing this to go on with the Hamas flags, letting these people onto campus, the professors that are participating in this, it’s the same message, which is Jews are not welcome here,” he said.
