Biden to condemn antisemitism, praise free speech at Holocaust remembrance event
US leader faces an increasingly acrimonious national debate about Jewish security, Zionism, free speech and support for Israel
When US President Joe Biden arrives at the US Capitol on Tuesday to honor 6 million Jews killed eight decades ago, his message will be as much about the present as the past.
Biden will speak to the existential threats faced by Jewish people, seven months to the day since the Palestinian terror group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 and seizing 252 hostages in what Biden has called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The subsequent war in Gaza is now entering its eighth month, having taken an enormous civilian toll on the Strip’s population, with 132 hostages still in Hamas captivity and with tens of thousands of Israelis still displaced from their homes in the south — as well as the north, due to incessant attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Speaking at the Capitol, in a keynote address for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance, Biden will aim to cool an increasingly divided and divisive US debate about Jewish security, Zionism, free speech and support for Israel, in the country with the largest Jewish population after Israel.
The speech comes as Hamas claims Israel’s retaliation has killed 35,000 people in Gaza (in unverified figures that do not differentiate between combatants and civilians). It has also left many of the area’s 2.3 million people on the brink of starvation, according to aid groups, and sparked protests in the US demanding that universities and the Biden administration withdraw support for Israel.
On Monday, Israel vowed to press ahead with an offensive in Rafah, Hamas’s last major stronghold in the Strip, amid international warnings that with over a million displaced Gazans having fled to the southern city, the operation would unleash new misery for Palestinians. Israel has said it will act to evacuate and avoid harm to civilians amid any offensive.
Many Jewish Americans have been critical of Israel’s Gaza campaign, leading protests against actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and condemning Netanyahu in Congress.
Law enforcement and advocacy groups, meanwhile, report a sharp rise in antisemitic attacks in the United States since October 7, as well as anti-Muslim attacks. Some Americans favor zero-tolerance policies defining antisemitism broadly, while others see the threat of attacks against Jews being used to limit legitimate criticism of US support for Israel.
“Antisemitism is reaching crisis levels in our country,” said Carol Ann Schwartz, national president of Hadassah, a women’s Zionist organization that has been consulted by the White House.
“Right now, we need our leaders to not only acknowledge the pain people are feeling, but also to actively confront the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist misinformation and lies being propagated on college campuses and beyond, which have made Jews a target.”
Biden, who has mostly avoided addressing campus demonstrations or protesters over his support for Israel that have dogged him for months, will speak about the subject for the second time in five days on Tuesday. He will condemn the rise in antisemitism while affirming support for free speech, his spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday.
“Passions are high. The issue is being heavily politicized. There’s a lot of tension. So this is a very important moment for the president to step forward,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of liberal advocacy group J Street, who has also been consulted by the White House.
It’s also a key political moment for Biden, who is in a tight race with Republican rival Donald Trump. Biden may be losing crucial support from young and liberal Democrats over his support for Israel, Democrats say. But he could also lose voters supportive of the Jewish state if he skews in the other direction.
Biden pledged to unite the country and said he was inspired to run by Trump’s response to the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, white nationalist rally, where marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Biden governs a country no less divided than when he took office in 2021, most statistics show.
The FBI reported a 36% increase in anti-Jewish hate crime incidents between 2021 and 2022, the latest year for which data is available, as well as a jump in crimes against Black Americans and gay men.
The Secure Community Network (SCN), an American Jewish security organization that monitors hate incidents, has referred more than 504 individuals to law enforcement though March this year, faster than last year’s pace, including threats at colleges.
“This is a scary time to be Jewish — it’s important for the president to rise to this challenge,” said SCN CEO Michael Masters.
Biden also discussed antisemitism in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, during which he pushed for Israel not to invade Rafah, according to a readout of the conversation.
The two leaders discussed the “shared commitment” of Israel and the US to remember the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust by Nazi Germany “and to forcefully act against antisemitism and all forms of hate-fueled violence,” it said.
Campus protest politics
Trump has sought to exploit Democratic divisions over Israel’s response and widening college protests to improve Republicans’ lot with Jewish voters, who traditionally vote Democratic.
Police crackdowns on some campuses have given ammunition to Trump’s long-running claim that US cities are under siege from violent crime, illegal migration and out-of-control leftist policies.
Trump and the Republican Party have argued that the protests are driven by antisemitism and that Biden has failed to protect Jewish students on campus.
Some of the protests have involved antisemitic chants and threats toward Jewish students and supporters of Israel. Jews say the term “Zionist” is increasingly used broadly as an ostensible slur against them. Many of the protesters appear to reject Jews’ right to self-determination in Israel, a position the majority of US Jews adhere to.
“Jewish Americans are realizing that the Democrat Party has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-terrorist cabal, and that’s why more and more Jewish Americans are supporting President Trump,” said Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson.
About seven in 10 US Jewish voters support Democrats, while three in 10 are Republican-aligned, according to the Pew Research Center. Many political analysts say Jewish voters join other Americans in rarely voting primarily on foreign policy issues.
Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, who helped craft a modern “working definition of antisemitism,” said the word is being misused to stifle protected speech about Israel.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would apply the definition Stern helped develop to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws on college campuses. Stern opposes the bill.
“I don’t think that you can combat hatred of any type effectively with weak democratic institutions,” said Stern. “When we have a government that decides it’s going to stop certain things from being said, that creates an opportunity for totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and that’s never good for the Jews.”
Proponents of the bill argue some speech has crossed over from freedom of expression to hate and incitement, encouraging discrimination and harassment targeted toward Jews.
