Schumer Calls Anti-Zionism A Form Of Anti-Semitism On Senate Floor
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Image by getty images
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a speech on the Senate floor that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism.
Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate and currently the highest-ranking Jew in government, added his remarks on anti-Zionism to a speech he was giving on health care, saying at the end of that speech that he wanted to thank French President Emmanuel Macron for making the same argument in a speech this weekend.
“Anti-Semitism is a word that has been used throughout history when Jewish people are judged and measured by one standard and the rest by another,” Schumer said.
“When everyone else was allowed to farm and Jews could not; when anyone else could live in Moscow and Jews could not; when others could become academics or tradesmen and Jews could not,” he said. “The word to describe all of these acts is anti-Semitism. So it is with anti-Zionism; the idea that all other peoples can seek and defend their right to self-determination but Jews cannot; that other nations have a right to exist, but the Jewish state of Israel does not.”
Schumer said a recent manifestation of anti-Jewish bias was the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel.
“The global BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign that I would say, in similar words to Mr. Macron, is a ‘reinvented form of anti-Semitism’ because it seeks to impose boycotts on Israel and not on any other nation,” Schumer said.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
