Politics
GOP leaders denounce antisemitism in their ranks but shift blame to Democrats
LAS VEGAS — Republican Jews acknowledged antisemitism is cropping up in their movement during a conference this weekend, but were quick to blame left-leaning Democrats for fanning the flames.
At the Republican Jewish Coalition leadership summit, a string of recent high-profile antisemitic incidents — including a skirmish this week featuring Tucker Carlson and the Heritage Foundation — cast a long shadow. Even as many speakers denounced antisemitism among conservatives and said the GOP must root it out, nearly all their condemnations were quickly qualified by criticism of Democrats.
“Republicans have a cold, and Democrats have a fever,” Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary and RJC board member, told reporters. “And Republicans are fighting the cold.”
The group’s summit, held annually at The Venetian Expo, the late casino magnate and GOP donor Sheldon Adelson’s convention center, occurs this year as the Republican Party is facing a barrage of pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler incidents within its ranks. Last month, a nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel withdrew his nomination after bragging of his “Nazi streak” in a text message; days earlier, Blue Light News reported on a leaked group chat of Young Republicans who praised Hitler and joked about the Holocaust. The same week, a Nazi symbol was discovered hanging in a GOP Congressional office.
Then, this week, Carlson hosted Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his podcast; the guest claimed the “big challenge” to unifying the country was “organized Jewry.” Carlson, a former Fox News host who retains a large following, said Republican Israel supporters suffer from a “brain virus.”
RJC speakers took aim at Carlson starting on the conference’s opening night. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday he has “seen more antisemitism on the right” in the past six months “than I have in my entire life.”
“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are (a) coward and you are complicit in that evil,” Cruz said.
But many speakers downplayed the concern, saying antisemitism is relegated to the fringes of the GOP.
Matt Brooks, CEO of the hosting organization, told reports that antisemitism is “a very small, limited problem in our party.” On Saturday, RJC staffers gave attendees large placards reading “TUCKER IS NOT MAGA” to wave, suggesting that Carlson’s antisemitic views stand apart from the GOP mainstream. Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), the longest serving Republican Jew in Congress, emphasized in his speech that antisemitism is an issue on the “fringes” of the Republican Party, and suggested that legacy conservative institutions like the Heritage Foundation are removed from the party’s mainstream.
“Heritage has to decide whether, in fact, they’re going to be a serious conservative movement and think tank and resource for all of us, or whether they’re going to pray to the fringes,” Kustoff said in an interview.
Even Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida), who denounced Carlson as “the most dangerous antisemite in America” in his speech, said in an interview that antisemitism is “still on the fringes” in his party.
“But if we don’t deal with it, it could metastasize, like we’ve seen with the Democrats,” Fine said. “And I’m not willing to be a part of that.”
The string of antisemitic incidents among Republicans in recent weeks has caused some top Jewish GOP donors to double down. “Antisemitism isn’t a ‘right-wing’ problem — it’s a human one, festering across the spectrum,” said Y. David Scharf, a GOP megadonor and grandson of Holocaust survivors. He noted the incidents “don’t shake my support for the RNC or GOP candidates — they fuel it.”
“The party’s swift suspension of that Young Republicans chapter shows accountability,” he added. “I will back those who fight hate decisively.”
Even so, the antisemitic incidents have yet to garner explicit condemnations from President Donald Trump or Vice President J.D. Vance, a fact RJC officials and Republican lawmakers downplayed in interviews. “This is a decision every elected official gets to make,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) told reporters, when asked about Vance’s dismissal of Young Republicans’ rhetoric as “edgy, offensive jokes.”
“I believe the Republican Party stands for Israel. I believe we stand against antisemitism,” Scott said.
Unless Trump, Vance and other Republican leaders condemn the incidents, it will only continue to fester, said Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “If the president himself and Republicans were serious about combating antisemitism, they would condemn it when it emerges in their own ranks. And they do not,” Soifer said in an interview last week. “There’s a permission structure within the Republican Party, and it comes from the top.”
Joe Gruters, the chair of the Republican National Committee, mentioned antisemitism nine times throughout his speech Saturday, all in reference to universities or the political left. “Antisemitism has found a home in the Democrat Party,” he said.
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) agreed, adding, “Let’s face it: Antisemitism is running wild on the progressive left,”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the highest ranking Jewish senator, encouraged Republicans to look inward, writing on social media Thursday, “Every person who has aligned itself with the Heritage Foundation, including elected officials, must disavow this dangerous mainstreaming of these hateful ideologies.”
CORRECTION: Matt Brooks’ name was incorrect in an earlier version of this article.
NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has spent much of the last month displaying his intense soccer fandom, just said during a press conference on security plans for a busy July Fourth weekend that France and Norway would be playing. He corrected himself after Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said something to him in an aside: In fact it will be Brazil and Norway facing off at the Meadowlands on Sunday. France played Sweden there yesterday and Norway in Boston last Friday.
BELGRADE, Serbia — The blue-clad throngs who arrive in Santa Clara, California, today for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s match against the United States will not only be rooting for a national team that has already advanced farther in a World Cup than ever before. They will also be cheering for Palestine.
That has been a staple of every stop made by Bosnian fans on their movements through North America, from a fan march in Toronto to the streets of Los Angeles before the Switzerland match to the stands in Seattle. It reflects a strong current of pro-Palestinian solidarity in the Muslim-majority Balkan nation, where many draw a direct line between their own war and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In 1990s, a coalition of U.S. and European powers, fresh off the internationalist euphoria that followed the end of the Cold War, were determined that the war crimes in Bosnia receive the highest and most professional response international justice could offer.
They set up the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity across the region were subjected to rigorous trials led by international prosecutors and judges.
This is how Bosnia spent a painstaking 25 years putting the perpetrators of its worst wartime crimes on trial, culminating in a genocide conviction for those responsible for the Srebrenica massacre, carried out over three days in early July 1995. It is the only European country since the Nuremberg trials to have pursued such action.
Bosnian diaspora communities — many traveling in large numbers to watch the matches in the U.S. — along with people back home, feel a strong connection to what they see as the plight of the Palestinians and the absence of international criminal prosecution for the crimes they believe Israel is committing in Gaza.
The issue is further inflamed by the fact that Bosnian Serb strongman Milorad Dodik — the single most divisive figure in the country and the most fervent denier of the Srebrenica genocide — has weaponized the legacy of the war to curry favor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Željka Cvijanović, a fellow member of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats now serving as the Serb representative to the country’s three-headed presidency, also visited Israel in late June.
Many of the other World Cup competitors whose fans most fervently embraced the Palestinian cause — including Jordanians who wore keffiyehs to their matches in Santa Clara — have been eliminated from the tournament.
LONDON — Much of Westminster will knock off work at 5 p.m. U.K. time for England’s round of 32 match against the Democratic Republic of Congo. Presumptive PM Andy Burnham is planning to watch with aides, while Keir Starmer, the man he is likely to replace on July 20, plans to watch in 10 Downing Street. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has a shadow Cabinet meeting at 4 p.m. but is set to end it promptly so she can watch from her suite of opposition offices in parliament.
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