A congressional hearing last week offered a preview of how Republicans may approach antisemitism over the next few years.
The convener was the House Committee on Natural Resources. The event was headlined: “Desecrating Old Glory: Investigating How the Pro-Hamas Protests Turned National Park Service Land into a Violent Disgrace.” The actual topic was the protests around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress this summer, during which some demonstrators outside Washington, D.C.’s Union Station spray-painted violent slogans including “Hamas is coming” and clashed with police.
Turns out the plaza outside Union Station belongs to the federal government, specifically the National Park Service.
The two-hour hearing was chaired by Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican infamous among Jewish groups for speaking at a white nationalist conference two years ago and directing readers of his congressional newsletter to an antisemitic website last year. Gosar, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas and several other committee members wanted to know why the park service had given a permit to ANSWER, a socialist anti-war group whose “own language on the permit,” Westerman said, “made it very clear that they support antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric.”
ANSWER’s application said it sought a permit for “a demonstration to stop the genocide in Gaza.”
Charles Cuvelier, an associate director of the park service, told committee members that federal law does not allow officials to choose which protests to permit based on the politics of the protesters.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Rep. Rudy Yakym, an Indiana Republican, said of that explanation.
“Nothing says America quite like a good protest,” said Westerman, seemingly aware that the hearing could look like a threat to free speech. “But I categorize that with good protest.”
Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the top Democrat on the panel, complained that the hearing was “cynical” and that Gosar seemed more concerned with the anti-Netanyahu protest than with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the capitol.
Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Montana Republican, repeatedly asked whether any of the protesters arrested were not U.S. citizens — and whether they were deported. “While foreign nationals are welcome to visit and appreciate our parks, they must do so with respect for our country, its land and its people,” Rosendale said.
Cuvelier said he did not know the citizenship status of the four protesters arrested by park police for property damage and assaulting police officers. A total of 25 people were arrested by a combination of local and federal police, though prosecutors declined to charge roughly half of them.
The idea of foreigners stoking anti-Israel activism is a theme outlined in Project Esther, the Heritage Foundation’s plan to counter antisemitism, which aims to dismantle what it calls a “Hamas Support Network.” The strategy can be summed up in three steps, each applied in this hearing:
Connect protesting groups to Hamas, which took place at the hearing.
Describe hostile criticism of Israel as not just antisemitic but anti-American. In the Union Station protests, that meant focusing on an American flag being burned next to an effigy of Netanyahu, and allegations that the protesters were connected to the Chinese government.
Press federal government agencies to punish the groups involved. The committee encouraged park service officials to deny ANSWER future permits and charge the group for property damage caused at Union Station or other future events on federal land.
Perhaps what is most interesting about the whole episode is the obscure body that hosted it — the oversight subcommittee of a panel on natural resources, which seemingly has no connection to either Middle East policy or hate speech. It’s a glimpse at what a whole-of-government approach toward combating antisemitism might look like in the second Trump era.
