Flashback: Biden repeatedly equated Islamophobia and antisemitism amid surge in attacks on Jews
As violent instances of antisemitism break out around the country this year, Fox News Digital took a look back at former President Joe Biden's penchant for equating antisemitism and Islamophobia.
While the former president rightly condemned hate directed at Jews in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis and the subsequent war in Gaza, Biden was almost always sure to draw an equivalency with anti-Muslim sentiment.
"In recent years, too much hate has given too much oxygen, fueling racism, the rise of antisemitism, Islamophobia right here in America," Biden said, days after the war broke out, in a prime-time address from the White House. He added: "We can't stand by and stand silent when this happens. We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism. We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia."
Biden added during a Human Rights Campaign event in October 2023: "We have to reject hate in everything, because history has taught us again and again, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, they're all connected. Hate toward one group left unanswered opens the door for more hate toward more groups, more often, regularly."
Instances of antisemitism spiked to new highs last year, with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) finding in a new report that there were 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, a 5% increase from 2023 and a staggering 926% increase since it began tracking such data in 1979.
The war in Israel initially fanned the flames of antisemitism on campuses in the form of protests, menacing graffiti and students reporting that they felt as if it was "open season for Jews on our campuses." The protests heightened to the point that Jewish students at some schools, including Columbia University, were warned to leave campus for their own safety.
Agitators and student protesters flooded college campuses nationwide last school year to protest the war, which also included spiking instances of antisemitism and Jewish students publicly speaking out that they did not feel safe on some campuses.
Protesters on Columbia University’s campus in New York City, for example, took over the school's Hamilton Hall building, while schools such as UCLA, Harvard and Yale worked to clear spiraling student encampments where protesters demanded their elite schools completely divest from Israel.
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As the protests hit a fever pitch last year, Biden again equated antisemitism with Islamophobia, even though it was clear that Jews were the group being targeted with harassment and violence.
"There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans," Biden said from the White House in May 2024 as the protests on college campuses continued.
"It’s simply wrong. There is no place for racism in America."
Biden faced condemnation from conservatives and other critics for not simply denouncing antisemitism as Jews in the U.S. faced protests and instances of antisemitism.
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"At a time when no college campus is on lockdown over Islamophobia, Joe Biden felt the need to spend as much time in his speech denouncing Islamophobia and ‘discrimination against Arab Americans’ as he did antisemitism. He is never able to just call out antisemitism," radio host Erick Erickson commented on X in May 2024 as campus protests against Israel raged.
"Biden repeats his both-sideisms," veteran James Hutton wrote last year of Biden's previous comments. "Only the Jewish students are being violated. Biden knows that, but he really wants those votes in Michigan."
"Biden is incapable of simply condemning antisemitism. Yet another equivocation. This administration is an embarrassment," Kerry Rom, deputy communications director for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote on X last year.
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This year, the Trump administration is cracking down on antisemitism and attacks on American Jews, which were underscored by a shooting that left a Jewish couple dead on the streets of Washington, D.C., last month outside of a Jewish museum, as well as a terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, last Sunday when an Egyptian national identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly hurled Molotov cocktails at people participating in a solidarity event for Israeli hostages still in Hamas captivity.
Soliman's charging documents stated that he "traveled to Boulder, Colorado, in his vehicle with the Molotov cocktails and threw two of the cocktails at individuals participating in a pro-Israel gathering. He also stated that he picked up gas at a gas station on the way to Boulder. He stated that he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead."
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Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro – the Keystone State's third Jewish governor – faced his own instance of antisemitism when a suspect set fire to the governor's residence while he and his family were asleep on the first night of Passover.
President Donald Trump meanwhile, signed an executive order on "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism" in January as his administration launched its crackdown on antisemitism. While federal law enforcement officials have arrested individuals allegedly tied to the widespread anti-Israel protests last year, the White House has threatened to end federal funding to universities that allow violent anti-Israel protests and is investigating immigration status of those accused of leading campus protests or carrying out antisemitic attacks.
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