Who Is To Blame For Rise in Antisemitic Attacks?

FEATURING PHYLLIS BENNIS – The suspect in the recent stabbing incident in Monsey, New York, who injured 5 people at a rabbi’s home, has been charged with federal hate crimes. Thirty seven year old Grafton Thomas’s web searches includes references to “Hitler,” and “Nazi culture.” He also apparently searched for the phrases, “Why did Hitler hate the Jews,” and “German Jewish Temples near me.” Like the suspects in the earlier Jersey City shooting at a Kosher grocery store, the suspect may have been linked to a controversial group called the Black Hebrew Israelites.

There has been a notable uptick in anti-Semitic incidents around the country at the same time as a growing crackdown on free speech supporting Palestinian rights. In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, my guest Phyllis Bennis wrote, “I’m Jewish. I fight anti-Semitism and I support Palestinian rights.”

Read Phyllis Bennis’ OpEd Here.

Phyllis Bennis, Member of the National Board of Jewish Voice for Peace, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, author of numerous books including Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Understanding Isis and the New Global War on Terror and Ending the US War in Afghanistan. Her new op-ed in the LA Times is called I’m Jewish. I fight anti-Semitism and I support Palestinian rights.