3 for the People: Antisemitism, Islamophobia this election cycle due to Israel/Hamas War

MADISON, Wis. - While not all Palestinians are Muslim and not all Israelis are Jewish, here at home voters say the Israel/Hamas war has automatically looped in those religious communities, for better or worse.

“It’s hard for a lot of Jewish people to want to talk about Israel in community because there are so many different feelings,” Rabbi Betsy Forester said.

Forester is the rabbi at Beth Israel Center in Madison. "I think that all Jews are connected to Israel because we have a deep historical connection and we're living in a modern world and Jews here are living here. I'm not an Israeli citizen. Most Americans are not. We consider ourselves citizens of the countries where we live, and that's very important to us."

The Rabbi said her congregation has worked to discuss the conflict overseas rather than shy away from it, and incorporate experts who have been to the region.

“And so most members of this congregation are looking for leadership that understands....that won’t throw Israel to the wind, but also won’t throw the Palestinian cause to the wind, because there is a real narrative there, there is real trauma there. There is narrative and trauma on both sides.”

Like many of her congregants, she has a tie to the country that can make hte conversation even more painful. Rabbi Betsy’s daughter lives in Israel.

“Of course I worry for her safety,” she said. “Her safe room is not in her apartment, it’s a shared safe room. And so that presents issues, you know, will she go? And what do people do when they need to use the bathroom or get more supplies? Our daughter tells us when she’s stocking up on supplies to make sure that she has what she needs if she has to shelter. I really hate it.”

On top of it all, Rabbi Betsy says after Hamas’s attack on October 7th she’s experienced anti-Semitism for the first time in her life. “This resurgence of anti-Semitism is hitting me really hard because it’s all over now, and I do encounter it out in the community and I encounter it even among faith colleagues…And this war and the activism around it have greatly exacerbated it.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League, there was a 13% uptick in reported anti-Semitic incidents between 2022 and 2023.

As a voter, Rabbi Betsy says Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party have a very developed platform to combatting hate. “The Republican platform is very, very short. It’s a few sentences. It doesn’t actually say much.”

“What offends me are the asinine, feckless statements that one of the candidates makes, the former president makes, about the Jewish people’s connection to Israel…asserting his sense that Jews have to have a dual loyalty, that we have to be loyal to him, that only he will save and protect the state of Israel,” Rabbi Betsy said.

At a Republican event billed as opposing anti-Semitism in September, Trump said, “I’m not going to call this as a prediction, but in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40% support in the polls. If I’m at 40, think of it, that means 60% are voting for Kamala (Harris), who, in particular, is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel, very bad.”

Also during the past year, the country saw an uptick in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents.

Maggie Slavin, the operations manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or “CAIR” in Chicago, said Muslims like her feel “under this constant microscope.”

“People are wondering like, can I wear my hijab to work? Can I wear my keffiyeh outside safely? Can I wear a Palestine pin without my employer or my school cracking down on me?”

CAIR’s 2024 civil rights report revealed its highest number of reported complaints in the organization’s history: 8,061 in 2023.

Here in Madison, headlines have included damage inside a Mediterranean restaurant on State Street , and a 20-year-old man banned from the UW-Madison campus after allegedly barging into a classroom and threatening a group of sorority sisters, including a Saudi Arabian.

“When Israel escalates an action or performs a significant airstrike in Gaza and now in Lebanon, our office gets more calls, we have more documented hate crimes,” Slavin said.

But they say the Muslim community feels unsupported from both sides. “Neither political party seems particularly interested in chasing after our vote or trying to coerce us with anything.”

“There’s this abject dehumanization of how ‘these people are terrorists and they’re human animals,’ and we see that from very right-wing portions of the country,” Slavin said. “But I think most people are at a place where they just don’t know. And I think it is a deliberate dehumanization by omission.”

She said that's why many Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans like UW-Madison PhD student Dahlia Saba, don't feel like voting for any candidate this November.

"This rhetoric that we've seen from the Democratic Party, from both parties, but even from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris when they disregard Palestinian lives, that rhetoric is contributing to a rise in hate crimes against Arabs, against Muslims and against Palestinians, broadly speaking," Saba said. "And we have seen that play out in the hateful attacks against Palestinians in this country and outside."

RELATED: 3 For the People: Palestinian, Israeli students believe politicians aren't saying enough about conflict

Both sides agree that ending the conflict is the only way forward. “The vast majority of American voters support a ceasefire, that’s factually correct. And I think that’s only a very recent thing,” Slavin said.

“We do understand, and most of us fervently believe, that there is no peace for the Jewish people in Israel without peace for the Palestinian people in Israel and in the occupied lands,” Rabbi Betsy Forester said. “There’s no justice for one without justice for the other.”

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