In his guest opinion, “The New Antisemitism: It’s Getting Worse” (Sept. 20), Emil Monda refers to the House hearings in which Congressmember Elise Stefanik confronted academic leaders about their stance concerning campus antisemitism and got them to resign.
Who is Elise Stefanik? She is a young New York congressmember who is a rabid Trump supporter. She agrees with Trump that the 2020 election was stolen and there was “massive fraud.” She will not commit to certifying the results of the 2024 election. She refuses to repudiate Trump’s Hitler-esque statement that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America. She is using her crusade against antisemitism to advance her career as part of a larger right-wing effort to de-legitimize academic institutions. After all, when scientists and other academics provide facts to combat Trump’s many lies, this hurts right-wing efforts to spread misinformation and fear. I would hope that Monda would acknowledge that while Stefanik was successful in trapping the academic leaders and bringing them down, her motives ran far beyond the question of antisemitism. I would also hope that Monda would be concerned about Stefanik’s blind support for a man who says that American Jews would bear responsibility if he lost the 2024 election. There is certainly a problem in America with antisemitism, but let’s be clear that it comes at least as much from the right as from the left.
Roger Owens, Laguna Beach
