In case we need any more evidence of how tone deaf the Biden administration is across the board on the issue of antisemitism and pro-Hamas protests raging on college campuses across the country, reports about Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden should clear that up. They invited groups aligned with the far-left, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist group known as IfNotNow. As a result, "several mainstream Jewish groups" pulled out of a Friday meeting, according to Jewish Insider. The meeting "was requested by Jewish advocacy groups that had previously met with Cardona in October," and yet somehow it was considered a good idea to include agitators.
The group aligned with the IfNotNow, and also a similarly radical group, Jewish Voices for Peace, is known as The Diaspora Alliance, which many of the other groups had not heard of. Such a group is among those opposed to the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Rep. Mike Lawler's (R-NY) bill passed the House last week that would codify that definition.
As the report mentioned:
“The groups who had requested the meeting found out at the last minute that the meeting was not going to proceed as planned and it’s now being rescheduled,” said one source familiar with the meeting. Another participant told Jewish Insider that they decided to sit out the discussion after the Education Department sent a list of participating organizations 20 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin.
Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Orthodox Union and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law either did not participate in or dropped off the call, another source familiar with the meeting told JI.
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Representatives of the groups that pulled out were frustrated to see the inclusion of some progressive organizations that oppose the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, including T’ruah, the Nexus Leadership Project and Bend the Arc. They were also surprised — and puzzled — to see a group called the Diaspora Alliance, which many had never heard of.
The Diaspora Alliance group is closely associated with IfNotNow, which since Oct. 7 has aligned itself with Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Israel advocacy groups. Three of the Diaspora Alliance’s staff members — including the group’s international director, Carinne Luck, along with Simone Zimmerman and Emma Saltzberg — co-founded IfNotNow a decade ago. Diaspora Alliance opposes the use of the IHRA definition, which has been endorsed by the Education Department, calling it “bad for Jews and Palestinians, and for human and civil rights.”
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The meeting was organized by the Department of Education, which did not notify the White House of the attendees, according to a Biden administration official, who said the White House does not meet with the Diaspora Alliance. In the meeting, Tanden conveyed that fighting antisemitism is a top priority for the White House, the official shared.
A November 2023 memo from the Diaspora Alliance claimed that the "Israeli government and its allies are promoting the use of the IHRA definition in order to curtail protected free speech," and that such a definition "has become a favorite tool of anti-democratic forces while failing to stem antisemitism."
After Lawler's bill passed, IfNotNow offered that "As American Jews, we see this McCarthyite crackdown on speech under the guise of Jewish safety as extremely dangerous. We know that Jewish safety cannot come at the expense of Palestinian freedom. Jewish safety and Palestinian safety are inextricably intertwined. This bill would criminalize criticism of Israel on college campuses in the name of protecting American Jews, but its impact would be the opposite."
Such groups have also come out in full support for the pro-Hamas protests on college campuses that terrorist sympathizers are carrying on with, making that quite clear with several social media posts and statements.
IfNotNow and Jewish Voices for Peace aren't just any far-left groups. As Townhall covered at the time last October, they were among those groups that illegally protested in favor of a ceasefire at the House Canon building following the attacks on Israel that Hamas perpetrated on October 7. The protests turned violent when arrests were made. Such groups are among those funded by George Soros' groups, just as the pro-Hamas protests on college campuses are. POLITICO considered it a "surprise" that Biden's donors are also funding terrorist sympathizers, but it's not surprising to most.
Several columns for Townhall have also called out such groups, including those from Alan Joseph Bauer and Dennis Prager. The latter, in writing about "Sick Jews," pointed to leftist ideology as a possible explanation. He also called out those groups by name, noting they "willingly serve as useful idiots for those who wish to exterminate the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Including them."
Bauer went for a similar explanation. "So when one looks at the Jewish organizations that since 10/7 have organized protests against Israel, he realizes that those involved see their association with the left and its ideas and rules as being stronger than their affiliation with other Jews and certainly the state of Israel," he wrote, also later noting that "[t]hose who support, finance, lock arms and rejoice with those who spill Jewish blood are putting their Judaism in a deep back seat after their left-leaning ideology."
This wouldn't be the only problematic move from Cardona when it comes to combating antisemitism. In February, the secretary declined to say if the pro-genocidal phrase "From the River to the Sea" was antisemitic. House Committee on Education and Labor Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) called on him to resign as a result.
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