Why Were Jews Omitted as ISIS Targets in War Authorization Bill?
A woman from Iraq’s Yazidi minority walks through an area strewn with bones of suspected victims of Islamic State massacres. Image by getty images
Jewish Republicans want Jews added to a military force authorization bill as one of the minorities threatened by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), the sole Jewish Republican in Congress, told CNN on Thursday that in the wake of the apparent ISIS affiliation of a terrorist who last month attacked a kosher supermarket in Paris and killed four Jews – whom the terrorist said he targeted because they were Jewish – Jews should be added to the authorization for use of military force under consideration.
Backing his call was the Republican Jewish Coalition.
The White House, submitting the language this week, mimicked language in a proposed bill in the last Congress that named as threatened by Islamic State Iraqi Christians, Yezidis and Turkmens, as well as Muslims who do not follow its extremist precepts.
The bill, however, was drafted before the killings in Paris.
“I strongly believe we were reminded in Paris that these radical Islamic extremists, they want to wipe Israel off the map,” Zeldin told CNN.
“They target not only Jews but our freedom and our exceptionalism as Americans — the whole Western world,” he said. “The pursuit of ISIS includes a threat not just to Muslims, not just to Jews, not just to Christians, but everyone and it all should be recognized in the resolution.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
