How many minutes, if not seconds, would it have taken Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his son Yair Netanyahu to tweet in rage against a Western leader who invited an illustrator (or a cartoonist) known for his anti-Semitic caricatures to meet with him? This is not some imaginary scenario. None other than President Donald Trump issued such an invitation to the White House on July 8. Apparently, he is not outraged by Ben Garrison’s caricatures, one of which depicts the presidents of the United States and Russia peeking from the skull of the angel of death who has a Star of David drawn on his nose and the word “War” boldly emblazoned on his forehead. Another of Garrison’s cartoons shows the US national security adviser and the head of the CIA as puppets of Jewish billionaires George Soros and the Rothschild family. All attempts to locate a smidgen of condemnation on Balfour Street (Netanyahu’s official Jerusalem residence) were in vain.
Just a week earlier on June 30, the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) presented Netanyahu and his ministers with its annual report on the state of the Jewish people around the world. After the meeting, Netanyahu’s office reported that he had accepted the institute’s recommendation to establish a special body equipped with all the appropriate tools for multidisciplinary action against anti-Semitism.
What “tools” are appropriate for dealing with a Jewish prime minister who hands out seals of approval to anti-Semitic leaders? A survey conducted by the JPPI among a select group of 180 rabbis and Jewish community leaders found that 50% of the respondents believe the US administration is not fighting anti-Semitism effectively, and 40% are concerned about the decline in Jewish community participation in their regions due to fear of anti-Semitic incidents.
JPPI’s representatives presented the Cabinet with data indicating a sharp rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents and in their intensity, peaking in the two deadly shooting attacks at American synagogues in Pittsburgh (in 2018) and near San Diego (in April 2019). The FBI reports that Jews are the most prevalent target of hate crimes, although they constitute fewer than 2% of the US population. Polls cited in the report indicate that almost 75% of them report feeling less safe in the past two years, meaning during Trump’s presidency.
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