The Biden White House is quick to call its conservative critics and political opponents “extremists” but appears unwilling to go so far when it comes to fanatical anti-Semitic leftists.
Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday whether the anti-Israel protesters swarming college campuses and city squares across the nation constitute “extremists,” at least where President Joe Biden is concerned. Although Jean-Pierre was prepared to slam former President Donald Trump and denounce anti-Semitism in the abstract, at no point during her labyrinthine answer could the press secretary bring herself to castigate potential Democratic voters.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus group, the Coalition Against Apartheid, called the massacre of thousands of Israeli civilians earlier this month by Hamas a “response to the settler colonial regime.” Other radicals at the university reportedly chanted, “One solution, intifada revolution,” reported Fox News Digital.
Last week at New York University, hundreds of students including members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America staged an anti-Israel rally. Among the signs exhibited by demonstrators was one that said, “Where there is oppression, there will be resistance,” insinuating that the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks were justified. Another sign showed a blue Star of David in a garbage can with the caption, “Please keep the world clean.”
At least one Hamas flag made an appearance at another such rally in Minneapolis on Oct. 22, where an elderly man was viciously mobbed.
“Does President Biden think the anti-Israel protesters in this country are extremists?” asked Doocy.
“What I can say is what we’ve been very clear about this — when it comes to anti-Semitism, there is no place. We have to make sure that we speak against it very loud and be very clear about that,” said Jean-Pierre.
The press secretary referenced the revisionist tale Biden often tells — in one instance twice in a row during the same fundraising speech — of how the geriatric Democrat decided to run for president after the August 2017 incident in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“He saw neo-Nazis marching down the streets of Charlottesville with vile, anti-Semitic, just hatred. And he was very clear then and he’s very clear now. He’s taken actions against this over the past two years. And he’s continued to be clear: There is no place, no place for this type of vile … and this kind of rhetoric,” said Jean-Pierre.
Not having heard an answer to his question, Doocy noted that “extremists” is a word the Biden White House frequently employs, “usually about MAGA extremists.”
For instance, on Sept. 1, 2022, Jean-Pierre felt confident telling the nation that conservatives with non-mainstream viewpoints are “extreme,” captive to an “extreme way of thinking,” reported the New York Post.
She went onto call “MAGA Republicans … an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our rights.”
That night, Biden took the stage at Independence Historical Park in Philadelphia and claimed, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Last month, Biden suggested Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville was an “extremist” over his principled stand against the Pentagon’s abortion policy.
The president has also insinuated on multiple occasions that lawmakers’ pro-life stances qualify them as extremists.
Doocy continued, asking, “So what about these protesters who are making Jewish students feel unsafe on college campuses? Are they extremists?”
“I’ve been very, very clear,” said Jean-Pierre, who had yet to brand anti-Israel protesters with the term apparently reserved for pro-life lawmakers. “We are calling out any form of hate. Any form of hate. It is not acceptable. It should not be acceptable here, and we are going to continue to call that out. And let me be very clear, this is a president that has continued to have that fight in his office, in this administration, you know, when he repealed Trump’s Muslim ban on his very first day in office.”
“He also established an inter-policy committee to counter Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and related forms of bias and discrimination,” continued Jean-Pierre. “We have taken this very, very, very seriously from the president all the way on down.”
Doocy changed tack, asking whether Biden regards the anti-Israel protests as a positive sign of youth engagement in politics or a harbinger of doom.
“Here’s the thing. There’s no place for hate in America,” replied Jean-Pierre, reiterating that the administration condemns anti-Semitism and that no student should live in fear.
Karine Jean-Pierre: There is no place for antisemitismyoutu.be
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