Tim Scott to Republican Jewish Coalition: ‘Cut Out the Rot of Antisemitism’ on Campus

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told the annual leadership summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday that the U.S. needed to expel students who back Hamas terror from universities, and deport foreign students who do so as well.

We need to “cut out the rot of antisemitism from our society,” he said. “We need cultural chemotherapy to fight this cancer.” He added that any university “that lets itself become a megaphone for evil should lose every dime of federal money.”

Scott began by setting aside the policy debate on Israel, saying he had addressed the issue already in an address to the Hudson Institute Oct. 10 — three days after the Palestinian Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7. Essentially, he said that the U.S. should stop sending money to Iran, and that the next White House should be more active in promoting ties between Israel and the Arab wrld.

In the Senate, he said, he was advancing legislation to “defund universities that coddle antisemitism,” which drew applause.

Scott then discussed his Christian faith and how it guided his approach to the issue of Israel. He condemned the Palestinian Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7 in passionate and emotional terms, pausing between each phrase: “Beheading babies. Raping women. Burning children alive. Kidnapping families from their homes — this is not protest. It’s not geopolitics. It is evil personified.”

He added: “And the poisonous antisemitism that has been allowed to fester on the radical left in American politics is just as disgusting as well.”

Citing George Washington’s famous letter to the Jewish community of Newport, he said that America’s founding premise included the protection of Jews in the United States.

In that context, he slammed pro-Palestinian students on campuses like George Washington University, who had projected messages celebrating the “martyrs” of the Hamas terror attack onto school buildings. And he slammed university administrators for their “equivocation — or, worse, deafening silence.”

Calling for “moral clarity,” Scott proclaimed: “Let this echo across every college campus in America. A federal subsidy for your education is not a right. It’s a privilege. A visa so foreign students can study here — it’s not a right. It’s a privilege.”

He thundered: “Do you want to know what a right is? The right of Jewish Ameircans to walk down the street in safety. That’s a right. Do you want to know what a right is? The right of Jewish students to study in their own college library without [it] being suggested that you hide in an attic. That’s a right!”

He added: “If this was any other minority group, the far left would be screaming from the rooftops, and the media would be lighting their hair on fire.” This, he said, was pure “antisemitism” on the left.

He added that American students who support Hamas should “become unemployable,” and members of Congress who support anti-Israel groups like the pro-Hamas Democratic Socialists of America should be “expelled froo office, immediately.”

Scott closed by saying that he hoped Hamas would “meet the wrath of God,” and “may some American hardware send them on their way.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.