Democratic Rep. Makes Outrageous Comparison to Columbia Protests
While much of the ignorant takes about Columbia University’s pro-Palestine divestment protests have come from the right, Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz has decided to offer one of his own after touring the campus.
Moskowitz visited Columbia on Monday alongside fellow Democrats Josh Gottheimer, Dan Goldman, and Kathy Manning. Moskowitz and Gottheimer have been slow to call for a ceasefire, despite the feelings of Jewish congressional staffers.
“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,’” Moskowitz told CNN that night.
“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,” he added.
While Moskowitz’s fear of anti-Semitism should not be dismissed, the protests at Columbia have included Jewish students, who even held a Shabbat service on Friday. The national organization Jewish Voice for Peace even pointed out in a statement that university officials, in attempting to shut down the protests, have infringed upon some Jewish students’ religious practices:
- Last Friday, on the eve of Shabbat, when Jewish scripture encourages Jews to gather in homes and in community to pray and welcome the sabbath, the university instead forced Jewish students from their homes on campus, denying them a safe place to worship or gather with their community.
- Some of these Jewish students also observe shomer Shabbat, abjuring all electronics during the sabbath. Last Friday, they were forced to break with their religious observances in order to comply with the administration’s urgent email communications.
Moskowitz’s comparison also compares protests against the war in Gaza to the “Unite the Right” protests of 2017, when white nationalists actively sought conflict in the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, which didn’t want them there. In contrast, many faculty members at Columbia University, appalled at the university’s crackdown, led a walkout on Tuesday in support of the student protesters.
Student groups across the country have continued with their own campus encampments and protests following the events at Columbia, while the discovery of mass graves in Gaza has brought international calls for an investigation. It seems a solution to both would be a ceasefire, but that may not happen until the Biden administration also ends its support for the war.