President Biden’s pick to serve as special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism has previously slammed Rep. Ilhan Omar for criticizing Israel.
Deborah Lipstadt, who is a professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Georgia’s Emory University, was nominated to the ambassador position on Friday.
Back in 2019, Lipstadt blasted Omar after the Minnesota Democrat created a firestorm when she claimed that pro-Israel Americans had an “allegiance to a foreign country.”
Lipstadt told Jewish Insider at the time that she believed Omar’s comments were anti-Semitic.
“Dual loyalties is part of the textbook accusations against Jews. They are cosmopolitans, globalists, not loyal to their country or fellow citizens,” she said.
While Omar said at the time she didn’t believe the comments were anti-Semitic, Lipstadt argued the congresswoman was “relying on traditional anti-Semitic tropes to do so.”
“What it suggests to me is that, at best, these people exist in a place where anti-Semitism is out in the ethosphere; they hear it, breath it in, and don’t even recognize it as anti-Semitism.”
Lipstadt once called President Trump — a father and grandfather to Orthodox Jews — an “anti-Semitic enabler” and compared him to a Nazi, and will need to be confirmed by the Senate before taking on her role.
Her nomination has already sparked outrage from the Zionist Organization of America.
ZOA’s president Morton A. Klein issued a statement opposing her nomination on Friday given her prior comments about Trump and accusing her of “displaying partisan left wing bias.”
“Lipstadt’s abuse of false Nazi and antisemitism charges against those with whom she disagrees politically should disqualify her from serving as the U.S. Combating Antisemitism Envoy,” Klein said.
“Lipstadt’s primary focus is antisemitism on the right (both real and imagined), at a time when the major threat is Islamist and far-left antisemitism. We are concerned that Lipstadt will ignore and/or give far too little attention to antisemitism from groups such as the Black Lives Matter organization, and leftist and Islamist BDS groups and Israel-bashing NGOs.”