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Republican Pushback: Drawing the Line
Republican leaders and conservative Jewish voices responded quickly. Some spoke at the annual Republican Jewish Coalition convention, although not everyone specifically named Carlson and Fuentes in their condemnations.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz: “We are seeing more and more anti-Jewish hate rising on the right. In the last six months, I have seen more antisemitism on the right than I have in my entire life. This is a poison. And I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and in our country.”
U.S. Rep. Randy Fine unequivocally condemned Carlson and Heritage: “We must call evil by its name: Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous antisemite in America. He has chosen to take on the mantle of leader of a modern-day Hitler youth to broadcast those who celebrate the Nazis, call for the extermination of Israel, defend Hamas and even criticize President Trump for stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions. I am cancelling an event with Heritage and will be calling on all of my Republican colleagues to do the same.”
Rep. Fine also condemned two of his Republican House colleagues: “I have the distinct displeasure of serving with two overt antisemites: Rep. Thomas Massie and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green. It makes my stomach crawl that I have to sit in the same room with them. So now we have to choose. Will we ignore these embarrassments to our party?”
The Difference Between Free Speech and Promoting Hate
The chair of Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, Mark Goldfeder, resigned, citing moral clarity: “The Jewish people have too often suffered when fighting hatred became a partisan sport. I have spent much of my legal career defending free expression, including speech I personally abhor. But defending this right is not the same as endorsing the platform of those who use it to dehumanize others. Free speech protects the right to speak and not to compel anyone to provide a megaphone for a Nazi. Choosing not to share a platform with bigotry is not censorship, it is conscience.”
Princeton legal scholar Robert P. George, a member of the Heritage Board of Trustees: “I am committed to free speech for everybody, including bigots, but defending their rights does not mean allying with them and welcoming them into our movement. They openly preach white supremacy and the hatred of Jews. They no longer feel the need even to try to hide their bigotry.”
Anti-Jewish hate and bigotry also have continued to increase on the far left. Radical groups that claim to fight oppression increasingly single out Jews and Israel for exclusion. Former U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt stated that “unlike most other prejudices, antisemitism is ubiquitous, coming from all ends of the political spectrum. It can emanate from anyone and anywhere: those on the right, those on the left, those in the middle and from Christians, Muslims, atheists, and, of course, Jews.”
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