Discussion on Israel and Anti-Semitism

been to Israel or anywhere in the region,

would it change your mind or open your perspectives if you did?

I'm sure it would, right?

You know, part of the the work that we've been doing here

as well is having conversations with, you know, the Jewish community, specifically the Zionist Jewish community to,

you know, better understand different perspectives, different positions, different experiences.

You know, again, my values have always been rooted in protecting dignity and safety for every single person,

especially as it relates to these inalienable things about our religion or ethnicity or culture.

And my greatest concern right now is that the state of Israel is

losing support all across the political spectrum here in the U.S.

And I believe that... Why does that concern you?

I think we're leaving a vacuum on the left and the progressive wing to speak to this criticism in a way that is in line with our values,

to where people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, who are raging anti-Semites and white supremacists and Christian nationalists, are

pretending to care about Palestinian safety when really it's just masking their overt hatred for Jewish people.

They're singing my song. And if we are not presenting our vision of what we believe in with our democratic values

that extends not just to the Palestinian people, but to the Israeli people and to the Jewish people,

you know, that land has a distinctly Jewish character, a distinctly Christian character, a distinctly Muslim character.

It's a land that has seen bloodshed for centuries.

And we, I think, are doing a disservice to the people of that region by not offering our progressive vision in

a way that isn't immediately swatted down as, you know, bigoted or anti-Semitic. And that's going to require a lot of conversations, a lot of hard conversations.

There will be things that we learn,

things that there will be missteps and mistakes made.

But as long as we're continuing that conversation,

we are at the very least presenting an actual vision in line with our values that can combat and hopefully silence a lot of the anti-Semitism that's coming from the right,

because we're leaving that vacuum wide open right now if we are afraid to have these conversations.