AOC in Congress leads to antisemitism in NY: State Republican cmte. chair
In Israel for the first time, Nick Langworthy claims media “sweeps antisemitism under the rug”
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANNick Langworthy at the Western Wall(photo credit: NATION COUNCIL OF YOUNG ISRAEL)
The chairman of the New York State Republican Committee said Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is partially responsible for the spike in antisemitism in New York City.“AOC is from New York and she is certainly participating in using rhetoric that is clearly antisemitic, as well as minimizing the Holocaust by drawing parallels to what is going on in the US,” said Nick Langworthy, who is in Israel this week on a mission with the National Committee of Young Israel. He added that “This group of legislators like AOC has entered Congress and there is a rise in antisemitism and I don’t think it is coincidental.” Langworthy, after a tour of Yad Vashem, said “anyone who tries to minimize the Holocaust clearly does not understand the impact it had on the world. I would challenge AOC that she should come here to Jerusalem and take the same tour I did. Then, maybe she would have a different perspective.”In May, the New York Police Department reported an 82% increase in antisemitic hate crimes in the city in the first three months of 2019. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2018 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, also published in May, found that there was an even bigger rise of 170% in antisemitic hate crime in New York State from the third to the fourth quarter of 2018.Langworthy said that the first step he will take to curtail antisemitism in his state is to put more pro-Israel Republican legislators in office.The GOP lost three House seats in the state last year, but Langworthy believes it can reclaim them in 2020, and maybe even add one more. Further, Democrats won a majority in the state Senate last November, wrestling control from Republicans who had led the chamber for much of the last century. With Democrat Andrew Cuomo as governor, Democrats now control the executive chamber of both houses of the legislature.“My job is to organize the Republican political party for the State of New York and we will run aggressive campaigns in areas where we see aggressive antisemitism,” Langworthy told The Jerusalem Post. “We will not be discouraged by the rise of Social Democrats.”Social Democracy is defined as a political movement that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within an existing liberal democratic and capitalist framework.Commenting on the media response to the antisemitic spike, Langworthy said he hopes the media will step up by covering antisemitic acts more readily and consistently.“Antisemitism is not reported on. It is like the media is trying to sweep it under the rug. I wish we had a more honest press reporting on antisemitic crimes the way it reports on all other kinds of crimes against other types of people,” he said.“We need to point it out and draw people’s attention to it,” he continued. “If the Republicans did and said many of the things that these Democrats have done there would be a massive outcry. We need to aggressively point out this hypocrisy and the antisemitic behavior of our elected officials, and shine a bright light on the candidates who are running who don’t harbor those sentiments.”Langworthy expects more Social Democrats to run in the 2020 elections, and that the current and future troop will continue to spew antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, because “you don’t have members of the Democratic Congressional leadership speaking out.”With the amount of attention that Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez receive, Langworthy said “it is going to be contagious. You will see [their ideas] trickle down to different levels of government and you are going to get copy-cat behavior. This could snowball in many ways.” Langworthy believes this could impact Israel negatively and wishes that these Democrats would come see Israel firsthand.Langworthy said that one of the most startling moments of his first trip to Israel was traveling in the West Bank and seeing red signs at the entrance to “Area A” Palestinian communities that indicate to Israelis that they are not only not welcome to enter, but that it is dangerous to do so and they should turn around and head the other way. He said this is not something New Yorkers or other Americans can easily fathom.“New York is the most Jewish state in the country and we have an unbreakable bond with Israel,” Langworthy said. “We must do everything we can to protect the Jewish people – not only in New York or in the US, but in Israel and around the world.”
