On May 7, Joe Biden delivered a short speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, during an event commemorating the Nazi-led genocide of the 1930s and 1940s that claimed the lives of some six million Jews. Against a backdrop of violent demonstrations of antisemitism raging across American college campuses – under the guise of “antiwar” protests – the timing was most appropriate. However, the one thing that stood out from Biden’s address was his failure to directly call out the anti-Jewish agitators and the organizations behind the campus mayhem.
As he does in almost every public appearance these days, Biden looked frail and unsteady as he made his way to the podium, and his words were at times barely decipherable. During past speeches on various topics, the current White House occupant has not shied away from condemning specific individuals or groups when it suited him politically. Donald Trump has been his favorite target, of course – along with the former president’s supporters and those whom Biden likes to call “MAGA Republicans.”
Now, things are different. Trump and those aligned with him cannot be blamed this time – not even by stretching the truth or ignoring the facts. It is abundantly clear that the wave of rabid antisemitism spreading through the nation’s universities has been entirely planned, incited, and orchestrated by socialist and progressive groups.
One can only assume, then, that Biden deliberately chose to keep his condemnation of antisemitism very generic and unfocused. He could not – or would not – criticize the very people upon whom he will be relying, if he is to win a second White House term in November.
Apparently, Nobody to Blame for Antisemitism
After rightfully pinning on the terrorist group Hamas full responsibility for the horrors perpetrated against Israeli civilians during the terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Biden couldn’t manage to find anyone to blame for antisemitism. He railed against antisemitic propaganda on social media, anti-Jewish posters appearing on college campuses, and the harassment of Jewish students. And yet, he apparently has no idea who is responsible for it all.
“Too many people denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust,” Biden observed. But who are these people? Perhaps we may never know. It is one thing to take an unequivocal stand against antisemitism, but when one refuses to condemn the people and groups fueling it – even while knowing full well who they are – the bluster and the indignation ring hollow.
Biden’s Personal Holocaust Story
Another disturbing feature of almost every speech or interview Biden gives is his tendency, sooner or later, to make it about himself. True to form, he did the same thing at the Holocaust Museum. He told the story of Tom Lantos, a Hungarian Jew, born in 1928. After the Nazis invaded Hungary, Lantos, then 16 years old, was arrested and sent to a labor camp. After escaping the camp for the second time, Lantos began to work with Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis. After the war, he came to study in the United States, becoming a respected economist. Ironically a progressive Democrat, Lantos eventually got elected to Congress as a representative from California. He served 13 terms and died in 2008.
What’s the connection to Biden? “He came to New York City penniless – but determined to turn his pain into purpose – along with his wife, also a Holocaust survivor,” Biden recounted of Lantos. “He became a renowned economist and foreign policy thinker – eventually making his way to this very capital, on the staff of a first-term senator. That Jewish refugee was Tom Lantos, and that senator was me.”
Just like that – in an oblique and self-indulgent sort of way -- Biden managed to insert himself into the story of the Holocaust. The inference was obvious: that he, Biden, had somehow made Lantos, the poor Jewish refugee, into the man he became. The true story is somewhat different. Though Biden deceptively implied that he brought Lantos to Washington, DC, the latter was a member of the Presidential Task Force on Defense and Foreign Policy a year before he became an aide to then-Sen. Biden, a position Lantos occupied for only one year.
The very fact that Biden will not name and shame those directly responsible for the raging antisemitism currently paralyzing the country’s most prominent – and, supposedly, most respected – educational institutions is another stain on his already tarnished presidency. It seems that America’s political left needs an intervention, or perhaps some kind of 12-step program. It is said that the first step in dealing with a problem is recognizing that one has a problem and taking ownership of it. The folks on the left do not appear willing to do that. Judging by his speech on the Holocaust and antisemitism, neither is Joe Biden.
