On Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) will criticize the Quincy Institute and the BDS movement for driving an increase in antisemitism across the country.

In a draft speech obtained by Jewish Insider, Cotton cites the recent attacks against Jews in Brooklyn and Monsey, N.Y., in addition to FBI and New York Police Department statistics that show a rapid rise in antisemitic crime.

Calling antisemitism an “ancient hatred,” Cotton says, “It festers on Internet message boards and social media. It festers in Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an isolationist blame America first money pit for so-called ‘scholars’ who’ve written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish money. It festers even on elite college campuses, which incubate the radical Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement—a movement to wage economic warfare against the Jewish state.”

The Quincy Institute — founded in 2019 and funded by the unlikely pairing of George Soros and Charles Koch — calls for an end to American military intervention and a refocus on diplomatic strategy. Neorealist scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who in 2007 jointly published the controversial book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, are both non-resident scholars at the institute. A Cotton aide told JI, “No think tank with this level of funding has engaged in such a tight embrace of outright anti-Semites and their ideas.”

Cotton also criticized New York’s bail reform law, which ended cash bail and pretrial detention for the majority of low-level crimes. The recent change has come under criticism from prosecutors, law enforcement and state Republicans.

Calling the legislation “a gift to criminals just in time for the holidays,” Cotton says, “How enraging must it be for New York’s Jews, to suffer constant antisemitic attacks and know the perpetrators will slide through a revolving door from the lockup back into their communities.”

Cotton plans to conclude his speech by declaring, “We stand with cops, not criminals. And we stand with the Jewish people against the ancient hatred that stalks them even to this day.”

A first-term senator, Cotton was elected in 2014 with $8.1 million in backing from the Koch brothers.