These schools should be removing these protest ‘encampments’: Rep. Jared Moskowitz
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., discusses the response to anti-Israel protests on college campus nationwide on ‘Your World.’
House Oversight Committee member Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., warned his own party Monday against remaining silent as left-wing student activists engage in antisemitic protest, with some calling for the eradication of the Jewish state and urging Jews to "go back to Poland."
Moskowitz, whose Broward County district has been home to a reported 89,000 Jewish adults, said on "Your World" antisemitism must be condemned whether it comes from the right or left.
He noted that after the 2017 Charlottesville, Va., incident, the right-wing, neo-Nazi contingent of the demonstrators was widely condemned across the political spectrum. In that case, a protest against the removal of a Confederate statue unraveled into chaos and left one woman dead.
"I've compared this situation to what happened a couple of years ago in Charlottesville because there, obviously, we had people with tiki torches shouting, ‘Jews shall not replace us’. And there was wide condemnation from the Democratic Party. There was no splitting of hairs there," he said.
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"[In the college protests] we don't have Aryan men with tiki torches: We have a diverse group of people; diverse ages; college students shouting, you know, ‘kill all the Zionists’ or ‘go back to Poland’. And, you know, we don't seem to have the same condemnation from my side," he said.
Moskowitz said it is much easier for fellow Democrats to call out right-wing vitriol but that too many on the left want to "pretend like that's not happening" at places like Columbia University.
"And so that's why I think it's important, regardless of where we see antisemitism on the left or on the right, we call it out. We don't play this tribal game that just because it's on my side, we're silent."
On "Your World," host Charles Payne reported Moskowitz, who is Jewish, began Passover not with his family in Florida but in New York, standing in solidarity with Columbia University Jewish students.
Payne reported Moskowitz had warned Columbia President Minouche Shafik not to act the way former presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard did when they could not clearly define whether antisemitic protest can be considered hate speech.
"What I was saying is, is that Harvard and UPenn couldn't answer the question whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the code of conduct… And that's why they're both no longer in their positions. Well, we're seeing the call for the genocide of Jews on Columbia campus. It's a violation of the code of conduct," he said.
Moskowitz noted Shafik previously warned protesters to disperse, which did not happen, adding it is time for university policies to be enforced against the vitriolic demonstrations and tent-filled sit-ins.
He also said antisemitic groupthink of sorts is not a new phenomenon in some precincts, pointing to the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) push on-campus a decade ago.
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"So they're regurgitating their greatest hits, which is that they're against the state of Israel, they want the destruction of the state of Israel. They want to go back to 1948, which is why you hear them chanting that," he said.
Moskowitz added that when a pro-Palestinian protest devolves into chants of "bomb Tel Aviv," "you're [now] at a ‘Bomb Tel Aviv’ protest."
"Those sort of things violate the codes of conduct at the school. And the school should be removing these encampments," he said. The lawmaker argued that if college administrators blink on their proverbial "red line" and not have the students removed from campus, then they themselves should resign.
Moskowitz, known for sparring in-session with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., over the veracity of Republicans' Biden family investigations, has also taken issue with members of his own caucus over the situation on campus:
Neo-Nazi, white supremacist and white nationalist groups are seen in Charlottesville, Va., surrounding a small group of counter-protesters, Aug. 11, 2017. (Reuters)
After Moskowitz critiqued Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is also Jewish, over his stance on what he called "Netanyahu's war machine," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took umbrage and told Moskowitz via X that Sanders lost family members in the Holocaust and that his commitment "to protecting innocents in Gaza stems FROM (sic) his Jewish values."
Moskowitz replied that he also lost family in the Nazi genocide and that that is why he voted to support aid to both Israel and Gaza, adding that "we are both better than doing this here."
Ocasio-Cortez later responded again, criticizing Moskowitz for purportedly "liking" a tweet by actor Michael Rapaport asking her what the Hebrew term for "[expletive]-off lady" is.