House passes two resolutions against antisemitism, one of them led by Jeff Van Drew

In the wake of a series of antisemitic attacks in Washington D.C. and Colorado, the U.S. House passed two resolutions today to condemn antisemitism and anti-Jewish acts – one of them authored by New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis).

Van Drew’s resolution was by far the less controversial of the two. It condemns the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington D.C. last month, and the arson attack at the Pennsylvania governor’s residence in April; it also more broadly affirms that acts of antisemitism “are fundamentally incompatible with the values of the United States and must be condemned unequivocally.”

The result was essentially unanimous: 400 members voted yes and zero voted no (although two, one Democrat from Michigan and one Republican from Georgia, did vote “present”).

“We need to protect America from antisemitism with the same ferocity as we should protect the right of Americans’ free speech,” Van Drew said on the House floor earlier today. “Because if Jewish Americans can’t walk freely in Boulder, or work safely in D.C., or celebrate Passover in their own homes without fear, then we indeed have failed as a nation.”

The other resolution, sponsored by a Republican representative from a district near Boulder, proved to be a tougher sell for Democrats. Many in the party objected to the resolution’s language lauding Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for “protecting the homeland”; it also originally included a clause labeling “Free Palestine” as an antisemitic slogan, but that was removed.

New Jersey’s three Republican congressmen supported the second resolution, as did Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch). Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran) voted “present,” and Reps. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) voted no. (The state’s other three Democratic House members did not vote, either due to illness or impending gubernatorial primaries.)

In a statement on her vote, Watson Coleman said she was concerned that the resolution uses the Boulder attack “for partisan political purposes.”

“My colleague from Colorado, Congressman Joe Neguse – whose district includes Boulder – introduced a bipartisan resolution that condemns this egregious act of antisemitic violence without exploiting it to score cheap political points,” Watson Coleman said. “I support his resolution, and would gladly vote in favor of it if Republican leadership had allowed it to come to the floor for a vote. They chose not to.”

Van Drew, though, implied before the vote that any opposition from House Democrats was a signal of deeper problems with antisemitism within the party.

“I’m not going to go through some folks from the other side of the aisle that have said things that have been pretty blatantly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish,” Van Drew said. “The problem here … when it comes to the Jewish state and Israel has not been the Republican Party.”