In a Senate floor speech that lasted for nearly an hour on Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called out the wave of antisemitism that has followed the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, denouncing anti-Israel protesters, young people, the media, erstwhile allies and others whom he said had were helping to propagate antisemitism, and who have abandoned or failed to grasp the scope and severity of the crisis Jewish Americans are experiencing.

“Vitriol against Israel in the wake of Oct. 7 is all too often crossing into brazen and widespread antisemitism, the likes of which we haven’t seen for generations in this country, if ever,” Schumer, who is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history, said. “I want to explain through the lens of history, why this is so dangerous: The normalization and exacerbation of this rise in hate is the danger many Jewish people fear most.”

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, Schumer lamented, “the solidarity that Jewish Americans initially received from any of our fellow citizens was quickly drowned out by other voices.” He lambasted anti-Israel demonstrators who have supported, justified, excused or denied the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. 

Some, he added, “skipped over expressing sympathy” for the victims of the attack, “in their haste to blame the attack on the past actions of the Israeli government.”

The current wave of antisemitism, he emphasized, isn’t coming primarily from the far right, but from “people that most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers” — people whom Jewish Americans had joined in protests against other forms of hatred and discrimination — ”but apparently… in the eyes of some, this principle does not extend to Jewish people.”

He called out slogans adopted by anti-Israel protesters such as “From the river to the sea” — echoed by a Democratic House member — which he noted is a founding slogan of Hamas, and said efforts to draw equivalencies between Hamas’ attack and Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas have “alarmed” and “shocked” the Jewish community.

“Can you understand why the Jewish people feel isolated when we hear some praise Hamas and chant its vicious slogan?” Schumer asked. “Can you blame us for feeling vulnerable only 80 years after Hitler wiped out half the Jewish population across the world?”

Schumer’s speech focused in significant part on the long history — both recent and further in the past — of persecution and violence that Jewish people have faced around the world, arguing that framings, adopted by left-wing activists, of Jews and Israel as powerful oppressors play into long-standing antisemitic narratives. 

“Antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout the generations often theorize, often weaponize this very dynamic, by pitting what successes the Jewish people have achieved against them and against their fellow countrymen,” Schumer said. “That’s been throughout history and it’s happening now.”

Schumer said he’s confronted anti-Israel marchers about what should be done about Hamas, and he said they don’t have answers or “don’t seem to care.”

“And when we see many people in news organizations remain neutral about the basic absurdity of these claims and actions, we are deeply disappointed,” he said. “More than anything, we’re worried, quite naturally, given the twists and turns of history, about whether these actions and sentiments could eventually lead.”

Even outside of those who’ve intentionally or unintentionally supported antisemitism, Schumer said that many outside of the Jewish community have failed to grasp the severity of the current wave of antisemitism and the threat it poses to the Jewish community.

“I have noticed a significant disparity between how Jewish people regard the rise of antisemitism, and how many of my non-Jewish friends regard it,” Schumer said. “To us, Jewish people, the rise of antisemitism is a crisis, a five-alarm fire that must be extinguished. To some of the other people of good will it is merely a problem, a matter of concern.”

The Senate majority leader noted a series of incidents, including attacks on Jewish people and Jewish-owned businesses and harassment of and violence against Jewish college students, as those where anti-Israel activity had crossed into antisemitism.

He highlighted the story of a Queens high school teacher who earlier this month hid in an office for hours as students rioted over her participation in a pro-Israel rally, and said he’d invited that teacher into the Senate chamber to watch his speech.

The New York senator described fighting this current wave of antisemitism as a basic test of the “future of the American experiment.”

Referencing at multiple points his own family’s history before and during the Holocaust, and fleeing from Europe to the United States, as well as his own experiences dealing with previous waves of anti-Israel sentiment, Schumer highlighted that, for Jewish Americans, “any strength and security that we enjoy always feels tenuous.”

“On top of feeling alone, the second dominant feeling of Jewish people who have endured throughout history has been the sting of the double standard, which is the way the world has practiced antisemitism over and over again,” Schumer continued. “And in recent decades, this double standard has manifested itself in the way much of the world treats Israel differently than anybody else.”

He highlighted how those double standards have led people to excuse the Hamas attacks, and ignore Hamas’ own practices that deliberately endanger Palestinian civilian lives.

“Why does the criticism for any civilian deaths seem to fall exclusively on Israel and not at all on Hamas?” Schumer asked. “Hamas has knowingly invited an immense civilian toll, an immense civilian toll during the war, exploiting the double standard that so much of the world applies to Israel.”

He also spoke about why “Jewish people defend Israel,” given its role as a safe haven for the Jewish people.

“We fear a world where Israel is forced to tolerate the existence of groups like Hamas that want to wipe out all Jewish people from the planet,” Schumer said. “We fear a world where Israel, the place of refuge for Jewish people, will no longer exist. If there is no Israel, there will be no place, no place for the Jewish people to go when they are persecuted in other countries. “

He again referred to his own family history, recounting that his grandfather, who survived the Holocaust, had broken down with emotion on his first visit to Israel.

“This had nothing to do with politics, or with money, or with racism, or with oppressive colonial power. It was deeply human,” Schumer said.

In the introduction to his speech, Schumer also took pains to emphasize that he was not seeking to characterize all criticism of Israel and its government as antisemitic, or to downplay Islamophobia, highlighting his own history of working on that issue.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) praised Schumer for the “extraordinary” speech.

“I want to compliment him for providing a history lesson for Americans about the history of the Jewish people, putting it in context with the conflict that’s underway,” McConnell said in his own remarks.

In April 2016, Avigdor Liberman, then and now an opposition lawmaker, sat on a stage in Beersheva and made one of the most memorable statements of his decades-long political career. 

“If I’m defense minister…I give [Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyeh 48 hours. Either return the bodies [of IDF soldiers] and the civilians [held in Gaza], or you’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, reserve a plot for yourself in the nearest cemetery,” Liberman said.

The next month, Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition and he became defense minister. Haniyeh survived and is enjoying the good life in Doha, Qatar.

However, on Dec. 21 of that year, Liberman sent an eerily prescient report to Netanyahu saying that Israel must initiate a surprise attack on Gaza, and that not doing so “is a severe mistake with far-reaching consequences that could be…even more so than the results of the Yom Kippur War in their influence on the Israeli Home Front, on the consciousness of Israeli citizens and on the image and standing of the State of Israel in the region.”

Nearly seven years ago, Liberman anticipated what would take place on Oct. 7 in the memo to Netanyahu: “Hamas plans to move the next conflict into Israel’s territory, with significant, well-trained forces (such as the Nukhba force) into Israeli territory while conquering an Israeli village (and perhaps several) in the Gaza envelope and taking hostages.”

“I gave this document to three people: the prime minister, [then-]IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and head of military intelligence Herzi Halevy,” Liberman told Jewish Insider this week. Eisenkot is now a member of Israel’s war cabinet and Halevy is chief of staff of the IDF.

“They were very skeptical,” he recounted. “They said it’s not serious. I demanded a discussion of the report in security cabinet meetings and got the same reaction. I was one person; the whole IDF said that Hamas is deterred and had no interest in an escalation.”

Even worse than not taking initiative, Liberman said, was that Israel allowed the constant transfer of aid money from Qatar to Gaza, which bolstered Hamas; that decision by Netanyahu and the cabinet was what spurred Liberman to resign from the Defense Ministry in November 2018.

At the time, he warned that a cease-fire with Hamas “cannot be interpreted in any way other than a capitulation to terrorism. This will severely harm our security in the long run. The response that we gave to the 500 rockets shot from Gaza was not enough, to say the least. The south should come first. Our weakness is being broadcast to other fronts.”

Speaking to JI in English from his party’s office in Modi’in, sitting behind a heavy wooden desk with a Premier League soccer game between Tottenham Hotspurs and Aston Villa playing on the TV mounted on the wall — he is a known sports fan and a particularly big supporter of Spurs — Liberman warned that Israel is repeating the mistakes it made with Hamas in the south, only with Hezbollah across the northern border.

Israel’s top security officials were “part of this misconception that it is possible to deal with Hamas, that they can contain everything and compromise, that [Hamas is] not a terrorist organization and they are responsible for over two million people,” Liberman said.

“We’re making the same mistake regarding Hezbollah, claiming that it’s a Lebanese [political party] that has responsibility for the daily life in Lebanon,” he added. “Hezbollah is not a Lebanese [party] and they don’t have any responsibility. They’re a terrorist movement.”

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Jewish Insider: Do you think Israel should initiate a new front in the north?

Avigdor Liberman: It’s a huge problem and I’m very disappointed that the same misconception is continuing in the north. They’re giving the same explanations regarding Hezbollah and no response to the Houthis. They’re trying to contain everything that is possible.

It’s clear that it’s only a matter of time. Hezbollah is waiting for us to be submerged in Gaza with a lot of forces. At the most convenient time for them, they will open the second front. We are leaving all of the initiative in the hands of Hezbollah.

We have a very strong position with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 from 2006. All members of the UNSC, including Russia and China, voted in favor of it, and the government of Lebanon also approved it. According to the resolution, there is no place for even one Hezbollah terrorist between the Litani River and our border. Today there are thousands. I think there should be a clear demand from our government to implement Resolution 1701.

I don’t see that [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah is ready to implement it. It’s impossible, from my point of view, to avoid this confrontation… It would be much better to clarify this position to all of our partners, including the U.S., U.K. and France.

Our priority as a normal country should be the security of our citizens. We have over 200,000 displaced people in Israel today. It’s crazy. The traditional vision of the IDF was to immediately move operations to our enemy’s territory, but today we created two buffer zones within Israel, one in the north and one in the south…It’s completely unacceptable.

JI: What do you think about the deal for Hamas to release Israeli hostages in exchange for a temporary pause in fighting and Palestinian prisoners?

AL: It’s very difficult. We are split between our minds and hearts. We want our boys and girls and their mothers back from Gaza, and we see how these animals from Hamas are playing this deal. But first of all, we are happy for every person, child, mother we can bring back to Israel, to their home. But still, we have more than 150 other hostages.

It’s completely unclear why it took more than a week [for the Israeli government to accept the deal]. Either make the decision immediately or place more pressure even if it takes four or five more days to release all of our hostages.

JI: Do you think there should have been a rescue operation?

AL: In the past our approach was to rescue, not to negotiate. I think that today we are discussing this issue too much and it shows that the real weakness in our society is the hostages. Hamas is using this. It’s clear psychological blackmail.

We’re dealing with blackmailers, people [for whom] this kind of behavior, the atrocities – it’s normal.

JI: What do you think the next steps should be?

AL: It’s crucial for us, if we want to stop the war as soon as possible, to place a lot of pressure…because for us to continue the war [much longer] is a mission impossible. We have an economy, we are under international pressure and I think it’s in our interest here to have the war be more intensive and to do everything to have a more intensive war but to end the war in a short period of time. 

We had the Six-Day War, and even [the] Yom Kippur War – after 19 days we were on the highway to Damascus and Cairo. Today, it’s over 50 days.

JI: You said that the economy cannot withstand a drawn-out war. As a former finance minister, what do you think the current one, Bezalel Smotrich, should do?

AL: We have a budget for 2024, but it’s nonsense to say it’s possible to move forward with what they approved in the Knesset. We’re in a completely different situation; it’s chaos.

I think [Smotrich] doesn’t understand the situation. He told the media that it’s like coronavirus, which we also successfully overcame. That’s stupid, because [the COVID-19 pandemic] was a worldwide phenomenon, where all countries were in the same boat… Today, it’s our local problem and we’re without any sympathy from other countries. Before COVID-19, the interest rate was almost zero and today we have a very high interest rate. We have hundreds of thousands of reservists who were able to work during [the pandemic]. They were the main labor force in our economy, people aged 23-45. I think it’s crazy to compare the situation to COVID-19.

The first thing we need to do is to give up all of our commitments regarding coalition money [the Israeli equivalent of pork-barrel funding]. We have to close all of the crazy ministries; today we have 37, half of which are completely unnecessary.

We need to start a program to create prosperity again. We should allocate funds differently, to the most important engines of our economy, high-tech and real estate, which completely collapsed.

JI: Why don’t you join the emergency government?

AL: I don’t recall anyone inviting me.

It’s not a big dream for me to be minister number 38. I’m ready to take responsibility and be part of the war cabinet, but if I’m not there, then why would I waste additional government money? I don’t want any coalition money, no budget, nothing. I don’t want a ministry – but at minimum, I would have to be part of the war cabinet.

Of course, it’s completely unacceptable for all of them – Netanyahu and [National Unity Party leader Benny] Gantz and Eisenkot and [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant – because my approach and my vision are completely different from theirs.

JI: If you think Gantz and Eisenkot are part of the problem, then what political constellation would you support after the war?

AL: I’m not ready to discuss political issues after the war. First of all, what we hope for is victory. We should win this war and after that, everything is open, but it’s not the right time to draw conclusions and to look for people who are responsible for this tragedy. I think that today we should only concentrate on one issue – winning this war.

For several hours on Tuesday night, a tweet from President Joe Biden’s campaign account put observers of the Israel-Hamas war on high alert. The three sentences came from a speech Biden gave on Saturday about the hostage releases. 

But read on their own, it was unclear to many whether Biden was outlining a policy shift — and whether he was, for the first time, embracing progressive activists’ calls for a ceasefire. 

“Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace,” the tweet read. “To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek. We can’t do that.” 

A senior journalist with the Middle East news publication Al-Monitor said Biden “essentially endorse[d] a ceasefire” with the tweet, arguing that he was “reject[ing] ‘path of war.’” One far-left activist called it a “major shift in tone.” 

But a senior Biden administration official told Jewish Insider that the White House’s support for Israel and its military campaign against Hamas remains unwavering, and that “this is not a change in policy,” noting that it came from a longer speech.

“The president continues to strongly believe that Israel has every right to defend itself from an active terrorist threat. We have seen Hamas officials say publicly that they want to try to commit the atrocities of October 7 again and again,” the official said. “As the president has said many times, Israel has every right and even the responsibility to protect its citizens from an active terrorist threat, so the president continues to strongly stand with Israel as it defends itself from Hamas.”

The quote in the tweet came from remarks Biden delivered last week after Hamas had released its first round of hostages in the ongoing, several-day humanitarian pause in fighting. The passage came at the end of a section reiterating Biden’s support for a two-state solution.

“He meant that we can’t lose hope for peace, ultimately, in the region, that it’s still incredibly important that we continue to lay the groundwork for, and create the conditions for, a lasting peace, and that involves a two-state solution,” the senior administration official told JI on Tuesday night.

And, the official added, the lines that were quoted in the tweet were “a reference to how Hamas does not want peace.” A two-state solution will not be possible with Hamas ruling Gaza, the official noted.

“We want this to be the last war, and we recognize that, for that to happen, Hamas can’t be the governing authority,” the senior official said. “They have to be out of power, because if you have Hamas in power, you’re likely to have another conflict.”

The Biden administration has expressed support for the current truce to be extended in order to release more hostages and get more humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“We want the pause to continue for as long as possible because we want as many hostages to get out,” the senior official said. “But once that is done, we recognize that Israel has every right to defend itself.” Israel has pledged to continue its war against Hamas — with a goal of eradicating the terrorist group — when the pause ends. 

Once Israel’s operation resumes, the official cautioned Israel to take efforts to differentiate between Hamas targets and civilians. 

“As Israel defends itself from terrorism, they have the obligation to do everything possible to prevent any civilian casualties and distinguish between terrorists and civilians,” the official said. “Even though Hamas commits international humanitarian law violations by actively embedding itself within the civilian population, Israel still has the obligation to do everything they can to prevent civilian casualties.”

The official’s expression of support for Israel’s war against Hamas comes amid emerging disagreements between Washington and Jerusalem over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Officials in the Biden administration have increasingly begun to warn Israel to consider reining in its potential operations in southern Gaza, cautioning that large-scale Israeli military activity in the south could cause a humanitarian disaster.

Earlier on Tuesday, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby urged Israel to hold off on expanding its military operations in southern Gaza until more has been done to locate people displaced internally in Gaza.

“We don’t support southern operations unless or until the Israelis can show that they have accounted for all the internally displaced people of Gaza,” Kirby said. Israel has focused much of its military campaign on northern Gaza.

The day before, a different senior White House official expressed similar concerns.

“It’s very important that the conduct of the Israeli campaign, when it moves to the south, must be done in a way that is to a maximum extent not designed to produce significant further displacement of persons. It cannot have the sort of scale of displacement that took place in the north replicated in the south,” the official said Monday. “It will be beyond disruptive. It will be beyond disruptive. It will be beyond the capacity of any humanitarian support network.”

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Senate Democrats on Tuesday to discuss potential efforts, championed by progressives, to place conditions on U.S. emergency aid to Israel. Lawmakers indicated that the conversations had not reached a conclusion and would likely continue.

“Different people voiced different views on it,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), one of the leading champions of conditions, said. “I think what I’m happy about is we’re beginning to have some serious discussions, and obviously there are differences of opinion.”

Sanders suggested he might try to force a vote on conditions.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a press conference that the meeting on Tuesday was the latest in a series of discussions around conditioning aid to Israel.

“There are different views on that and we’re going to have to have a discussion with the caucus and the administration,” Schumer said. “But above all, we’ve got to pass the [emergency aid bill]. That’s the North Star.”

Schumer didn’t specifically answer a question about his personal views on the subject, saying, “I’m going to discuss it with the administration and my caucus” — not overtly ruling out supporting conditions. He said he’ll bring the emergency aid bill, which will also include Ukraine, Taiwan and humanitarian funding, up for a vote next week.

The current group of lawmakers publicly and explicitly supporting conditions remains small, including Sanders, Welch and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), although a few others have indicated openness to the idea. Other Senate Democrats have explicitly ruled out supporting conditions.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), after the caucus meeting, issued a statement that he would “push for policies that ensure taxpayer dollars are only used in ways that comply with international humanitarian law.” He also called for a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, arguing that the U.S. “cannot condone a resumption of the bombing when it causes death and injury to so many civilians.” Unlike some colleagues, Welch did not specifically call for Hamas to be demilitarized and removed from governance in Gaza as part of a cease-fire, but said hostage release talks must continue.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who attended a meeting with senior Israeli Defense Forces officials yesterday, said he expects that there will be a “continuing effort” by the Israeli military to “minimize civilian deaths even more effectively than has been done so far.” He argued that pressure from President Joe Biden and lawmakers has been effective in helping to reduce civilian casualties. He also suggested the current pause could be extended by days or weeks.

“One of the reasons why I have opposed detailed restrictions is I don’t think we should be putting into statute, in effect micromanaging, the use of arms by Israel when it’s fighting for its own existence against a terrorist organization committed to destroy and annihilate the Israeli people,” Blumenthal said.

He also noted that U.S. laws requiring that foreign military assistance be used in accordance with human rights laws already apply to Israel.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said he wants “zero conditions,” adding, “I stand with Israel, and they shouldn’t have any conditions.”

The prospect of conditions also met with a chilly reception from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who called it “ridiculous” and “totally unnecessary” during a press conference — indicating that any bill including conditions would face serious hurdles among Senate Republicans.

Even if conditions on aid to Israel aren’t included in the emergency funding bill — a likely outcome given that Democrats will need support from Republicans and their most pro-Israel members to move the bill forward — the current conflict does appear to have pushed forward discussion on the topic, which pro-Israel activists and lawmakers have long worked to keep confined to the far fringes.

“Placing additional conditions on assistance is not in the security interest of the U.S. or Israel.  The reality is that Israel is taking extraordinary steps to avoid civilian casualties even at the risk of the safety of its own soldiers,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JI. “The actual perpetrator of civilian casualties is Hamas, which uses innocents as human shields. The way to prevent future threats to civilians is to remove Hamas from Gaza. That is why Congress should quickly pass President Biden’s security assistance proposal for Israel  — without additional conditions.”

Schumer also announced at his press conference that he’ll be delivering a “major” Senate floor address on Wednesday on “the dangerously dark and terrifying trend of antisemitism that is on the rise” since Oct. 7.

“The solidarity that Jewish Americans, myself included, initially received from our fellow citizens in the aftermath of Oct. 7 has been drowned out by some others, even some we considered allies,” Schumer said. “It’s an all too painful reminder that antisemitism has long seeped below the surface and now has reared its ugly head in painful, blatant, dangerous ways.”

He indicated the speech would address antisemitism on campuses among other issues.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce is calling a hearing next week with the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, where the university leaders will be asked to answer for antisemitic and violent incidents against Jewish students on their campuses, the committee announced on Tuesday.

“Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen countless examples of antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses. Meanwhile, college administrators have largely stood by, allowing horrific rhetoric to fester and grow,” committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said in a statement. 

“College and university presidents have a responsibility to foster and uphold a safe learning environment for their students and staff. Now is not a time for indecision or milquetoast statements. By holding this hearing, we are shining the spotlight on these campus leaders and demanding they take the appropriate action to stand strong against antisemitism.”

According to an announcement from the committee, the presidents will be asked to “answer for mishandling of antisemitic, violent protests.”

Harvard President Claudine Gay, UPenn President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth have all faced criticism for their responses to anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations and other incidents on their campuses.

Scores of schools across the country have taken similar flak for their responses to antisemitism on their campuses. 

A committee spokesperson told Jewish Insider Foxx had chosen these schools because they had been “at the center of the rise in antisemitic protests.” The committee also contacted Columbia University which declined to attend due to a scheduling conflict. All three presidents are appearing voluntarily.

“President Gay has accepted the invitation to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Dec. 5,” Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton told JI. “President Gay looks forward to sharing updates and information on the university’s work to support the Harvard community and combat antisemitism.”

MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen told JI that Kornbluth “welcomes the opportunity to engage with the Committee Members” and referred JI to past statements on “recent events on campus.”

A UPenn spokesperson said in a statement, “President Magill understands the critical importance of fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate on Penn’s campus and looks forward to sharing the actions Penn is taking at next week’s hearing.”

Nearly 40 senators who viewed footage from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel on Tuesday morning emerged from the screening seeming shaken, some of them in tears.

“We must bear witness to what they did, to honor the memories of the thousands of families who lost loved ones, friends, beloved family members,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), who co-organized the screening with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), told reporters. “There are those who wish to deny what happened. We need to let the world know what happened here.”

As the world remembers the attack in the future, Rosen continued, “it will be sanitized, and memories will be longer gone. It’s important that we see it now, in real time, because Hamas has vowed to repeat this day over and over, over and over… They have promised to export this terror. So we need to show people who they really are and what they plan to do and how they plan to do it.”

Rubio expressed a similar view.

“I think it’s really important not to sanitize this. Over time these horrifying incidents sort of lose their impact,” he told reporters. “The one thing that struck me is how proud and gleeful these people were [about] what they were doing to civilians, unarmed children, people sitting around at home having breakfast, kids out at a rave party. It gives you insight into what human beings are capable of.”

Many of the senators who attended the screening told reporters they didn’t want to talk about what they’d seen.

“It’s the face of evil,” the usually voluble Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, clearly struggling with what he’d seen. “There is a level of evil and hate and depravity that defies words. And it is astonishing that there are still some in America and across the globe who deny these atrocities occurred. This was not combat. This was the slaughter of innocent civilians. And the joy and celebration among those terrorists as they were murdering children — it simply defies words.”

Cruz said the lawmakers had seen footage of terrorists celebrating as they killed women and children, “desecrated the bodies” and beheaded people.

“It was jarring and harrowing. It shook all of us up in the room,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said during a press conference on Tuesday. “I had to go sit in my office for a half hour alone after seeing it.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Senate majority whip, told Jewish Insider “it’s just graphic violence and death.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told JI that the footage was “just horrific.”

The screening comes amid conversations among Senate Democrats about potentially placing conditions on emergency U.S. aid to Israel. They’re expected to discuss the subject at a caucus lunch just a few hours after the screening. The screening was initially planned more than two weeks ago, before public discussion of conditions had begun.

“This is so important why we need to pass aid to Israel, so Israel can protect themselves. We need to move forward, get those hostages out,” Rosen, who vocally opposes conditions, said. “Israel has to protect themselves and the world from the brutal, brutal terror that Hamas waged in Israel and has promised to wage again.”

She did not say specifically whether she thought seeing the footage might change the way colleagues view the conflict.

“I think what we first have to focus on right here, right now, in the immediate, is there are still hostages,” Rosen told JI. “There are still children, women, babies, we need to get the hostages out… [My colleagues have] seen what they did to children, women and babies. We need to provide humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people that are victims of Hamas as well. And then we need to move forward to find a way to end the cancer that is Hamas terror.”

Asked if seeing it had impacted his views on the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, Van Hollen said, “I’ve known it was horrific and this makes it clear just how horrible it was.”

Cruz said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “was right in his response to this, pledging to utterly eliminate Hamas. That is the only reasonable response. And America should stand unequivocally with Israel in eliminating Hamas.”

The highly graphic footage, compiled by the Israeli government from Hamas body cameras and other sources, has been screened for House members, reporters and others in the international community in recent weeks.

Citing claims of a “longstanding, unchecked spread of antisemitism” on the University of California, Berkeley’s campus, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed a complaint on behalf of Jewish students on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the campus is a “hotbed of anti-Jewish hostility and harassment,” Jewish Insider has learned.

The lawsuit, which names the University of California (UC) Regents, UC President Michael Drake, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and other officials as defendants, claims that since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, antisemitism has been exacerbated at the school — citing several on-campus incidents of intimidation, harassment and physical violence against Jewish students.

UC Berkeley Jewish students wrote in the complaint that the school does so little to protect Jewish students, it feels as if the school is condoning antisemitism. They added that officials at the university display a “general disregard” for Jewish students.

“The concerns of Jewish students are not being taken seriously and incidents that are affecting Jewish students are not being treated the same as incidents that would affect another targeted minority on campus,” Hannah Schlacter, an MBA student at the school, told JI. 

The complaint, a copy of which was obtained by JI, details a pro-Palestinian rally following Oct. 7 in which a Jewish undergraduate who was draped in an Israeli flag was attacked by two protesters who struck him in the head with a metal water bottle. 

It further cites that Jewish students and Jewish faculty are receiving hate mail calling for their gassing and murder, and claims that many Jewish students report feeling afraid to go to class. Pro-Palestinian protesters, the suit continues, disrupted a prayer gathering by Jewish students and blocked the main entrance to campus, and a faculty member went on an 18-minute anti-Israel rant in front of roughly 1,000 freshmen in his lecture class. 

“Frankly, I’m not sure why a Jewish student would come to [Berkeley] law school,” UCB professor Steven Davidoff Solomon, who teaches an undergraduate class on antisemitism in the law, told JI. “There’s a group of students who feel free to say the nastiest slurs as long as they substitute Zionist for Jew and they repeatedly do that while the administration refuses to take steps to condemn it, to conduct training, to take measures they would take if it was discrimination against other minorities, and it’s disappointing,” he said, calling the lawsuit a “last resort.” 

UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky acknowledged rising antisemitism at the school in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. “I am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks.” He noted that, “[t]wo weeks ago, at a town hall, a student told me that what would make her feel safe in the law school would be to ‘get rid of the Zionists.’” He added he had “heard several times that I have been called ‘part of a Zionist conspiracy,’ which echoes antisemitic tropes that have been expressed for centuries.”

Schlacter, who testified about antisemitism on campus to the University of California Board of Regents earlier this month, said, “When we look at the policy in place, it appears the policy is not being enforced for issues affecting Jewish students. When it isn’t enforced for our situation but is for other situations, that to me is discrimination.” 

“Moreover, policy not being enforced sends a message that when there are hate crimes against Jewish students, that is accepted because it will be swept under the rug,” she continued. “We’ve made efforts to speak to the administration and do not feel like we are taken seriously. There’s a disconnect between the asks students are making [and] the actions the administration is taking.”  

After Schlacter and other students met with UC Regents, the board committed $7 million to combating antisemitism and Islamophobia. “Seven million dollars distributed across 10 campuses per year, I’m not sure how far that will go,” she said. “Also, throwing money at the problem is not getting to the root, which is that Jewish students are being treated differently and policies are not being enforced when there’s Jewish students involved.” 

Schlacter said she does not want to see the campus anti-Israel group, Bears for Palestine, named for the school’s mascot, shut down, as several other schools have done with chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine. “Disbanding those groups is not a long-term solution,” she said. “The long-term solution is looking at culture across the UC system. Why is there hostility and how do we combat that in the culture? What programs and initiatives can we launch to have a more truly inclusive culture?” 

Schlacter said she would like to see the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office employees be trained on identifying antisemitism.  

UCB Chabad Rabbi Gil Leeds, who is also a UCB alum and has served as the campus Chabad rabbi since 2007, said the antisemitism situation is worse than it’s ever been at the school. “Jewish students assaulted at rallies is a whole new level of hostilities that we haven’t seen,” Leeds said, noting that several students involved with Chabad are from Israel. “Police are scared to get involved because they are worried about greater violence. That shows you what we’re dealing with.” 

Leeds said there has been “tremendous fear and trepidation,” particularly last month when National SJP called for a “Day of Resistance” at campuses nationwide. “Our armed guard that day came prepared with tear gas, everything he thought he would need… the company that we contacted would not agree to send us an unarmed guard, that’s the level of intensity.” 

The lawsuit states that while antisemitism has increased since Oct. 7, it has long been prevalent on campus. It cites a decision last year by nine law school student organizations to amend their constitutions with a bylaw that bans any pro-Israel speaker. The numbers have now swelled to 23 groups, including academic journals that prohibit Zionists from publishing and pro-bono organizations that prevent Jewish students from receiving hands-on legal experience, training, supervision and mentorship. 

The ban denies Jewish law students networking opportunitIes provided to others; deprives them of earning pro-bono hours for state bar requirements; curtails their avenues for developing and improving legal research, writIng, and editIng skills; and limits their choices for obtaining academic credits towards graduatIon, according to the lawsuit, which notes this is all illegal under federal law and university policies.

”The situation at Berkeley has deteriorated to the point that something really needs to be done beyond just raising awareness. We’re facing antisemitism at campuses around the country, but Berkeley is especially bad. Of all places, Berkeley had a number of warnings that they needed to address antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and yet they failed to heed them,” said Kenneth Marcus, the Brandeis Center founder and a Berkeley Law school alum.

While the situation that was highlighted last year focused on the law school, Marcus said “it has certainly spread far beyond that and we have been getting reports throughout the university, including the undergraduate institution.” 

According to the complaint, Berkeley’s acquiescence to these discriminatory policies has helped give antisemitism free reign on campus in violation of the law. “This suit targets the longstanding, unchecked spread of antisemitism at the University of California Berkeley, which, following the October 7 Hamas attacks, has erupted in on-campus displays of hatred, harassment, and physical violence against Jews,” states the complaint. “Court interventIon is now needed to protect students and faculty and to end this anti-Semitc discrimination and harassment, which violates University policy, federal civil rights laws, and the U.S. Constitution.” 

Earlier this month, the Brandeis Center, the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel International and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP launched the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL), a free legal protection helpline for college students who have experienced antisemitism. 

“After Oct. 7 there’s been a lack of moral leadership but when you look more closely, Jewish students [at Berkeley] have been discriminated against for well over a year,” the ADL’s Central Pacific regional director, Marc Levine, told JI. “It wasn’t just demonstration in support of Hamas’ attacks that this began. Student groups already were actively banning Zionists from participating in their activities.” 

Levine, a former California State assemblymember, called on local politicians to hold the University of California accountable for the “gutless response to antisemitism on campus.”

Senate Democrats are expected to debate a push by some progressives to impose conditions on the administration’s request for $14 billion in emergency military aid to Israel during a caucus lunch on Tuesday. 

Around a dozen Democrats met with Israeli officials in the Capitol on Monday evening in a sitdown organized by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL). Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) described the conversation as “extremely frank.”

“We just want to be assured that they are abiding by American values as they try to dismantle Hamas,” Schatz told reporters. “And we all conveyed that collectively and clearly. I do believe they heard us, but obviously, we have a long way to go.”

Lawmakers said the discussion centered around Israeli military practices in the current conflict, including tactics, strategy, operational goals and rules of engagement, as well as the civilian casualty rate in Gaza and plans for Gaza after the war. 

The meeting included several lawmakers who have expressed concerns with Israel’s operations in Gaza and the resultant civilian casualties, as well as more hawkish pro-Israel lawmakers. They met with a small delegation of IDF members visiting the U.S., led by a major general, a diplomat at the Israeli Embassy in Washington told Jewish Insider.

The effort to impose conditions has been rejected out of hand by some Democrats, such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-MD). 

“I don’t believe we should do that. I’ll look forward to our conversations but I don’t believe that it would be effective” Cardin told JI yesterday. “I think the way that the president [has] handled his conversations with the Israelis has produced tangible results, including humanitarian assistance and a strategy on the military side that has made less [civilian] loss of life. So I think we’ve had [an] impact on them.”

The senators said the discussion had focused on the military aspects of the conflict, and that the military officials said they couldn’t speak to political decision-making by civilian leadership in Israel or potential U.S.-imposed conditions — but conditionality was on lawmakers minds.

The progressive push to condition aid to Israel comes as a senior Biden White House official said Monday that the administration, at all levels, is pressuring Israel to restrain its operations in southern Gaza when the current pause expires.

“The conduct of the Israeli campaign when it moves to the south must be done in a way that is to a maximum extent not designed to produce significant further displacement of persons,” the official said. “You cannot have the sort of scale of displacement that took place in the north replicated in the south…  It also has to be conducted in a way that is maximally de-conflicted with humanitarian facilities — power, water, humanitarian sites, hospitals, other facilities including the many U.N.-supported shelters located throughout south and central Gaza.”

The official said Israel understands it will have to pursue a “different type of campaign” in the south.

President Biden over the weekend indicated that he wasn’t against efforts to impose conditions on Israeli aid, although White House officials have since sought to distance the administration from the effort.

“What [the president] also said, right after acknowledging that [conditions were] ‘a worthwhile thought,’ was that the approach he has chosen to take so far has produced results and outcomes,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday. “So, the approach that we’re taking with Israel and, quite frankly, with our partners in the region is working. It’s getting aid in to people that need it.  It’s getting a pause in the fighting.  It’s getting hostages out. It’s getting Americans out.”

Conditioning aid to Israel would be an unprecedented step, one long opposed by pro-Israel groups and a majority of U.S. lawmakers. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), one of the most vocal proponents of conditioning aid, said following the meeting that he continues to believe such a move is necessary. But several other attendees — even critics of Israel’s military operation — voiced opposition to conditioning aid.

Schatz suggested that conditions could take various forms, including lower-impact provisions like requirements to report to Congress or “a normal standard requirement for foreign military financing.” The laws regulating all U.S. foreign military financing already apply to aid to Israel.

“I don’t think money to help Israel should be an exception to the general practice that the Congress has in describing how they want and expect the money to be spent,” Schatz said. The administration’s aid request is subdivided into a variety of specific categories, such as purchases of ammunition and Iron Dome interceptors.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) said that the rate of civilian casualties in Gaza is not “sustainable” but stopped short of endorsing conditions.

“We have to have the debate. The massive loss of civilian life — it’s wrong. The idea of this bombing resuming and going back to that level of casualties is very alarming to me,” Welch told JI. “But there’s also the tragedy and the horror that was inflicted on Israeli civilians. That is brutal and unspeakable. The issue here is that Hamas is the enemy, but the Palestinian people aren’t.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) indicated he wasn’t fully satisfied with the responses from the Israeli officials but said he is not currently supporting conditions.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said it’s “important to have these discussions and get the answers that we need.” 

“It’s important to be clear here, Israel was violently attacked on Oct. 7… it was barbaric,” Kelly said. “They have a right to defend themselves and we have traditionally supported Israel in their national defense. It’s in our best interest as well.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who has supported conditioning aid to Israel in the past, told JI he is waiting on responses from the administration to questions that Senate Democrats posed about Israel’s military operation as he considers whether to support conditions.

Any effort to condition aid is likely to face opposition from Republicans, although several who spoke to JI yesterday said they’re waiting to see what, if anything, Democrats put forward.

“Israel has to decide how to fight what is an existential threat,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told JI. “Israel is not taking little children and elderly people hostage. The laws of war have been totally ignored and violated by Hamas over and over again. I’m very eager to see the support for Israel pass in the supplemental. And Israel has suggested a way that humanitarian assistance could be done, and it seemed to make sense to me.”

Before taking over the top GOP Appropriations spot, Collins had pledged to fight efforts to place conditions on aid to Israel.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said he’d be watching for Israeli leadership’s response to any proposed conditions.

“I think it depends on the limits and how well received it would be to people who are on the battlefield,” Tillis told JI. “To me, it would be very important to see how Israeli leaders would react to it, if they think that they’re manageable, and do not create any constraints. But I don’t think that the United States should ever get on the front end of determining what’s best for Israel. I think Israel’s in the best position.”

Beyond the debate over conditions, further issues loom for the supplemental bill, which is expected to include humanitarian support for Gaza, aid to Ukraine and Taiwan and border security funding.

Lawmakers are working to hammer out what could be a far-reaching border security deal with policy changes that go beyond the additional funding that the administration proposed. Senators said Monday that progress is underway but there are still major issues to be worked out, with a prospective deadline at the end of the week.

Without satisfactory border policy, most Republicans will not support the supplemental, Tillis told reporters. “This whole exercise is about getting a majority of the Republican Conference behind the supplemental that has border security measures in it. Absent that, we’re not going to get on the supplemental,” he explained.

On the House side, though, border policy changes could be a poison pill for some progressive Democrats, while some conservative Republicans might balk at additional funding to Ukraine, potentially requiring a delicate coalition to ultimately move the bill forward — if House Republicans agree to take up the Senate’s combined bill at all.