For Immediate Release: September 13, 2024
Media Contact: Asya Pikovsky, [email protected]
Bend the Arc Responds to Republicans' Antisemitic Doug Emhoff Ad
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Bend the Arc: Jewish Action released the following statement from CEO Jamie Beran in response to a political ad released this week seemingly using an antisemitic trope about Doug Emhoff’s Jewish faith to try to discourage Arab American and American Muslim voters in Michigan from voting for Kamala Harris.
The ad, which at first seems to celebrate Emhoff’s Jewish identity, quickly becomes something more insidious. The ad conflates Emhoff’s Jewish identity solely with the Israeli flag, while underlining Harris’s support for Israel — a classic use of the dangerous antisemitic dual-loyalty trope. The ad is targeted to American Muslim and Arab American communities in the swing state of Michigan, a clear attempt to deflate voter turnout for Harris by exploiting the concerns of voters directly impacted by the Israeli government’s violence in Gaza.
“We must confront Republicans on antisemitic ads targeting Arab and Muslim Americans, and we also call on the Biden-Harris Administration to deny MAGA the opportunity to divide Democrat voters by using every power at their disposal in support of ending the violence in Gaza, including the offensive weapons embargo President Biden promised.
The vile antisemitic tropes in this ad should have been consigned to the dustbin of history long ago, but clearly, no slander is too low for MAGA Republicans. While these ads demonstrate Donald Trump’s growing desperation as Kamala Harris shoots up in the polls and Americans embrace her message of hope, optimism, and unity, they remain a dangerous attempt to divide Americans against each other in order to game an election.
We won’t let MAGA Republicans divide us. Time and again, Republicans have tried to divide Jewish voters and people of color, immigrants, and even from other Jews. We refused to allow them to do this. Today, they’re using the same old playbook to try to divide our community from our Muslim and Arab neighbors and friends. And we will again refuse to allow them to.
In 2020, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action joined allies to beat back Trump’s reelection campaign and elect President Joe Biden. We knew then and we know now that the path to victory isn’t through Jewish voters going to the polls alone. It’s through building a big tent: a coalition of multi-faith, multiracial, multi-ethnic voters dedicated to an America free from white supremacy, racism, and antisemitism. Today, they’re trying to break the coalition that beat them last time.
The Biden-Harris Administration, and the Harris campaign, can make attack ads like this less effective by finally making good on President Biden’s ‘red lines’ promise to stop providing offensive arms to Israel, which we have been calling him to do since June. Prior to perhaps the most consequential election of our lifetimes, Democrat voters — the majority of whom demand a ceasefire — must be shown that Democratic leaders hear us. This too would deny MAGA an opportunity to exploit the pain and suffering of both Jewish and Arab communities to divide the coalition we need not only to beat Trump, but to survive the possibility of a Trump victory and the white nationalist agenda threatening both of our communities.
For the Biden-Harris administration, along with us and a wide array of Jewish organizations, Emhoff played a critical role on the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, an effort we and other antisemitism experts celebrated for largely avoiding politicized agendas and truly recognizing that a future free of antisemitism is a future where all people are free and safe, not just our community. As home to the first and only Jewish PAC advocating exclusively for progressive policies in the U.S., we’re excited by the prospect of a Jewish First Gentleman. Not because Doug Emhoff is Jewish, but because we have seen him lead with the Jewish progressive values we were founded on.”
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