Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo of Hollywood has warned local governments in his district that they must present a united front against anti-Semitism or lose support for their legislative efforts.
He told attendees at the Aventura meeting that he was tired of protests by people who were “totally ignorant” about Israel and Jewish contributions to the civil rights movement.
He later attended a Miramar City Commission meeting to speak about a motion Mayor Wayne Messam introduced, but then withdrew, calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The Floridian’s Liv Caputo first reported on Pizzo’s comments at Aventura.
“Now is the time to say clearly whether we are on the right side with history or whether we are not,” he told attendees of the Aventura conference, hosted by Israel’s consul general in Miami, Maor Elbaz Starinsky.
Pizzo added that if he doesn’t see “a wholeheartedly united group of commissioners” speaking out against anti-Semitism by the Aventura Council’s July 18 meeting, the council “will suffer the consequences of not having (his) support at the state level.”
“That’s how it works: You’re either on the right side of history or you’re not,” he said to applause.
Pizzo told Florida Politics that his opposition is to anti-Semitism, not criticism of Israel, but that “a lot of people confuse the two as just being synonymous with being mean to Jews.”
In December, he flew to Israel to meet with local officials and survivors and tour the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attacks in which Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and kidnapped hundreds more.
Sunny Isles Mayor Larissa Svechin recently visited Israel, as did several state lawmakers, including term-limited Sen. Lauren Book, who Pizzo will succeed as Senate Democratic leader, and Democratic consultant Christina Ulbert.
Ulbert detailed the trip in a guest article published Sunday in Florida Politics.
Israel retaliated with a military operation after the Oct. 7 attack, sparking months of anti-Israel protests that have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians since then, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Pizzo said he visited 18 universities “and heard about all the different schools of thought” just before leaving for Israel on Tuesday. He said what many young people today don’t know is how passionately and in great numbers Jews fought to help African-Americans during the civil rights movement.
“I think it’s important to note that in 1964, more than half the students who went to Mississippi State were Jewish — you know, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were killed — and in 1961, a Jewish student, Paul Brains, was one of the (first) Freedom Riders,” he said.
“So when you’re talking to 18- and 19-year-olds who are totally ignorant and getting their information and news from TikTok, it’s important to put it in context.”
At Wednesday’s meeting in Miramar, he criticized what he called double standards toward Israel.
“I’ve heard the same calls for a ceasefire, the same concerns, the same questions,” he said. “I don’t recall seeing an agenda item about the 377,000 Muslims killed in Yemen. I don’t recall hearing a moment of silence or a resolution or an agenda item about the 231,708 Muslims who have been killed and continue to be killed in Syria. So as we consider these agenda items at the city, county, state and national level, I want to be very careful to call it a reality if it is a reality.”
“Not Israel. What a lot of people are trying to say is, ‘It’s the Jews’s fault,’ but they can say Israel. Of the 208 sovereign nations in this world, 49 are Muslim-majority. There is only one Jewish state.”
Pizzo’s comments came just one week after a new law went into effect that adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism as Florida’s standard. The law comes in the wake of a 360% increase in anti-Semitic incidents across the US over the past nine months, according to the Anti-Defamation League, and a surge in anti-Israel protests and encampments on college campuses, with more than 3,100 arrests as of last month.
A poll released in May by Hillel International found that 61 percent of Jewish students who witnessed pro-Palestinian protests said the protests contained language they considered “anti-Semitic, threatening or insulting to Jewish people.”
Sixty-three percent said they felt less safe on campus, and at schools with encampments, 58% blamed the tent cities for their distress. Forty percent said they felt they had to hide their Jewish identity.
In November, just one month after the Hamas attack on Israel, House members voted 104-2 against a resolution by Jacksonville Democrat Rep. Angie Nixon “calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine” (HR 31C). The bill made no mention of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas fighters and Palestinian civilians in Gaza at the time. As of July 1, 116 hostages remain missing.
In May, the city of Doral passed what it called “the first ceasefire resolution of a South Florida municipality.” After a wave of criticism, the city council rescinded it a week later and replaced it with one that acknowledged the suffering and death on both sides of the conflict but called for an end to “all hostilities.”
Mayor Christy Fraga, who proposed the original bill, said the original bill was “fundamentally flawed.”
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