editorials
A Test of White House Policy
A lmost immediately after the Biden administration
announced its national strategy to combat antisem-
itism, it was put to the test.

In mid-May, at the commencement ceremony for the
famously progressive CUNY School of Law, a gradu-
ating, student-selected Yemeni-immigrant speaker
named Fatima Mohammed gave a 13-minute speech that
included a 3-minute anti-establishment and anti-Israel
diatribe that was deeply troubling.

Mohammed’s ill-informed, hate-infused pronounce-
ments charged Israel with, among other things,
“indiscriminate” killings of Palestinians by “rain[ing]
bullets and bombs on worshipers,” denounced CUNY’s
collaboration with “the fascist N.Y.P.D.,” and called for a
“fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism
around the world.”
Standing alone, Mohammed’s screed was bad enough.

And then, its offensiveness was compounded when
CUNY Law School circulated the speech to the public so
that those who missed it in person could share the hate
online. But does the White House view the Mohammed
rantings as antisemitic?
The administration’s antisemitism strategy includes
what the White House says are “over 100 new actions
and over 100 calls to action to combat antisemitism,
including new actions to counter antisemitism on college
campuses and online; whole-of-society strategy [that]
includes new stakeholder commitments,” and lays the
foundation for reducing antisemitism “over time.” The
strategy has four main goals: increasing awareness and
understanding of both antisemitism and Jewish American
heritage; improving safety and security for Jewish
communities; reversing the normalization of antisem-
itism; and building coalitions across communities to
fight hate.

But when it came to defining antisemitism, the adminis-
tration chose a confusing course. Rather than adopting the
widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance
Association working definition of antisemitism — which
in its appendix recognizes that applying a double
standard to demand of Israel a behavior not expected or
demanded of any other democratic nation — is antisem-
itism, the White House highlighted IHRA and also refer-
enced an alternative definition that says applying double
standards and singling out the Jewish state for criticism
is not antisemitic.

Most Jewish organizations went along with the
White House’s weak-kneed deference to progressive
pressure, declared victory and pointed to the fact that
the IHRA definition was featured most prominently
in the statement.

And now the CUNY test case.

The White House has recognized that Jewish students
on college campuses are feeling threatened and victim-
ized by the rising level of vitriol against Israel and
the blaming and targeting of campus Jews for what
critics call Israel’s crimes. IHRA labels these positions
as antisemitic.

How should they be treated under the new White
House policy? CUNY itself condemned Mohammed for
what it called her “hate speech.” The school’s Jewish
Law Students Association disagreed and came out in
solidarity with “our friend and classmate Fatima.”
Politicians and pundits on the right and the left have
weighed in on the issue. No surprises there. But we
haven’t yet heard from the White House. How the White
House responds will be important, and we hope it is
stronger than a mere, “It never should have happened.”
It’s the administration’s move. ■
C ongress endorsed the highly contentious debt
ceiling suspension deal reached last week between
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
(R-Calif.). The bill was signed into law and will lift the
nation’s borrowing limit for two years.

The default-saving deal was no surprise. Nor was
it surprising that neither Republicans nor Democrats
were happy with it. But everyone recognized that some
resolution was necessary for the United States to avoid
a catastrophic and unprecedented default in paying its
financial obligations.

So, Republicans agreed to a cap on non-defense
discretionary spending that was higher than the 2022
level that they wanted to maintain, and Democrats agreed
to add work requirements for certain categories of adult
food stamp recipients and to cut back on increased
funding to the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats,
modernize aging technology and improve customer
service. And then each side claimed victory — telling its
faithful that the other side made the more consequential
concessions to reach a deal.

The political brinksmanship over the periodic process
to raise the country’s debt ceiling when one party
controls the White House and the other controls at
least one house of Congress has become predictable.

One party articulates its expected positions and issues
10 JUNE 8, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
President Joe Biden
House Speaker
Kevin McCarthy
demands, threats, promises and ultimatums. The other
side does the same. And then, when both sides realize
that they don’t have the votes to force their views or back
up their threats, they agree to a compromise. This year’s
spectacle was no exception.

For the Jewish community, which has sought funding
increases in several areas, including U.S-Israel defense
programs, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and
the Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program, there was a
mixture of concern and cautious optimism.

There was concern that the freeze on increases will
undo previous commitments for funding increases in
2024, and some comfort in knowing that at least 2023
funding levels will likely be honored. There are even those
who expressed wishful optimism that pre-compromise
increased funding commitments will be honored. But no
one really knows.

The last time the U.S. faced a debt ceiling “crisis” was
in 2011. Then, as now, the White House and Congress
negotiated a major deficit reduction bill to raise the debt
limit. But many of the cuts enacted were quickly reversed
in subsequent legislation since the changes weren’t
permanent or even binding. The same thing can happen
with respect to last week’s deal following the next round
of elections.

But there is one significant takeaway from the griping,
finger pointing and unending kvetching about how each
side gave away too much in negotiating the debt ceiling
compromise. And it’s a simple point: The single “winner”
in this deal appears to be McCarthy, who promised a
deal, negotiated a deal, and parlayed a bipartisan vote
in support of that deal notwithstanding his right flank’s
grousing about his failures and threats of a recall vote
which could be triggered by a single member’s motion.

That didn’t happen.

We can speculate over whether that means that the
Freedom Caucus is toothless or that McCarthy has
generated enough goodwill and leadership credit to
make the effort to remove him futile. Either way, McCarthy
can celebrate his success, even as everyone works to
figure out how to undo the consequences. ■
Biden: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire; McCarthy: United States Congress
Who Won in the Debt Ceiling Deal?