If Biden is against antisemitism, why does he continue to fund it?

Late last month, President Joe Biden declared that he was “very” concerned about the rise of antisemitism . If he were sincere, he would direct his administration to stop funding it.

Consider his longtime staffer, Antony Blinken. The secretary of state often speaks about his stepfather Samuel Pisar, who lost his entire family in the Holocaust. Blinken related Pisar’s escape from the Nazis at his confirmation hearing, and he has spoken about Pisar more than a dozen times since, often to establish his bona fides in the fight against antisemitism.

“We live in a time where antisemitism is again on the rise, in America and around the world,” Blinken told the U.S. Holocaust Museum. “When hateful ideology rises, violence is never far behind.” As secretary, he has promised to call out antisemitism and declared the United States would be “resolute in the fight against antisemitism.”

How sad, then, that Blinken pursues policies that reward antisemitism. Consider Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: Blinken restored funding to Abbas, a man who denies the Holocaust, promotes antisemitic blood libel, and pensions terrorists who kill Jewish children. Blinken’s silence during his visits to Ramallah suggests his rhetoric about Pisar is cynical, meant only for gullible Americans.

Abbas, after all, wrote a doctoral dissertation arguing that Zionists supported the Holocaust. Over subsequent years, he downplayed and denied the Holocaust. In September, he speculated that Hitler targeted the Jews not from antisemitism, but because they were moneylenders. With a 40-year track record of Holocaust denial and diminishment, is there any question that Abbas promotes antisemitism? If so, how does funding him send a message about being “resolute in the fight against anti-Semitism”?

Or consider Yemen : One of the first actions Blinken undertook as secretary was to lift sanctions on the Houthis, a group that goes even beyond Iran’s “death to America, death to Israel” chants to add “damn the Jews” in its motto. Five years ago, a Washington think tank delegation queried Houthi representatives about their slogan. The Houthi spokesman was blunt: “That’s our program.” That Houthis now launch ballistic missiles at the Jewish state should surprise no one. That the United States allowed them a windfall should.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan bases his Iran approach on the idea that money and diplomatic outreach can put Iran’s reformers in the driver’s seat. But it was Mohammed Khatami, Iran’s reformist president famous for his “Dialogue of Civilizations” call, who gave asylum to Wolfgang Frohlick and Jurgen Graf, two of the world’s most vociferous Holocaust deniers.

The same holds true with Lebanon and Turkey . Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s unconfirmed energy envoy, has pushed to empower both Turkey and Hezbollah through energy deals and endorsement. By supporting the trans-Turkey energy route over that of democratic Cyprus and Greece, Hochstein has primed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the world’s most antisemitic head of state after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to receive tens of billions of dollars, some of which Erdogan now promises to Hamas. Hochstein likewise justified Lebanese maritime claims in a scheme that risks pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into Hezbollah coffers, never mind that Hezbollah’s secretary general once quipped he would be happy if all the Jews returned to Israel, as it would save the trouble of hunting them down in other countries.

Then there is Somalia , a country seldom in the headlines but the recipient of billions of dollars under Biden and Blinken’s watch. Less than six weeks after Blinken met Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Barre declared Hamas was not a terrorist group and suggested Jews were the “children of pigs and dogs.” The Biden administration’s response? Crickets. The money still flows to Somalia.

Antisemitism is at its highest level worldwide since World War II. Biden is right to be very concerned, and Blinken is right to condemn it. If only the leader of the free world and his top diplomat had some control over whether antisemites overseas would have access to billions of extra dollars.