President Joe Biden is harder on America’s allies than he is on pro-Hamas radicals on American college campuses, Senate Republicans said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“Joe Biden is putting more pressure on Israel these days than he is on Hamas itself, or on the pro-Hamas chapters on America’s campuses,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said at the Capitol Hill event.
Biden recently criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel’s continued fighting in Gaza and for not doing more to open up avenues of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Cotton said that he wasn’t surprised by Biden’s gentle approach to the anti-Israel protestesters, given that “antisemitic elements” had been growing for years within the Democratic Party under Biden.
The Arkansas lawmaker called the encampments that have sprung up on American campuses “little Gazas” and defined them as “disgusting cesspools of antisemitic hate, full of pro-Hamas sympathizers.”
The press conference followed up on a letter that a group of 27 Republican senators sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in April, demanding that they take action to investigate incidents of rioting and violent antisemitism on college campuses, which they say violate federal law.
Since that letter was sent, there have been numerous significant and escalating incidents at American universities.
A riot took place at UCLA on Tuesday night between pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators, for instance, after the school refused the break up the encampment on campus.
Cotton demanded that federal agencies take action to prevent the violence and chaos taking place and said that the administration must defund schools that “won’t protect the civil rights of their Jewish students.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that Biden could stop what’s happening on college campuses “on a dime” by threatening to pull federal funding from universities and putting pressure on them to break up the out-of-control demonstrations.
Kennedy said that Biden has been soft on this issue because he’s afraid to “alienate the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said that there are quite a few Jewish families in his state “that have their kids in these schools up north, and I think most of them are having to rethink the safety of their kids.”
He said that the families are “scared to death” for their children’s safety.
Scott pointed to what’s happening at Columbia University in New York, which has been the site of a number of violent mob incidents, and said that it represented something “un-American” and “disturbing.”
The Florida senator said that university administrators have been “wimps” who cower before “anti-Israel, antisemitic” behavior.
Scott said that Biden is afraid to go after these schools because he fears he will lose votes.
“He’s fine getting the pro-Hamas crowd to vote for him,” he said.
Fox News reported that White House spokesman Andrew Bates issued a statement on Tuesday:
President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life. He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days.
President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful. It is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.
Cotton, Kennedy, and Scott were joined at the news conference by GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Joni Ernst of Iowa, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and Roger Marshall of Kansas.
