According to Reuters report, the United States is likely to
review its ties with countries it deems ‘anti-Israel’. It can be termed a shift
in policy toward equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Earlier in March, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo had
said in a speech that anti-Zionism - opposition to Israel’s existence as a
homeland for the Jewish people - was a form of anti-Semitism, or hostility
toward Jews, that was on the rise worldwide and that Washington would “fight it
relentlessly”.
The State Department’s special envoy for monitoring and
combating anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, said this US position could spell reviews
of ties with foreign governments or leaders.
“The United States is willing to review its relationship
with any country, and certainly anti-Semitism on the part of a country with
whom we have relations is a deep concern,” he told Reuters during a visit to
Israel.
“I will be raising that issue in bilateral meetings that I
am undertaking all over the world,” he said. “That is something we are going to
have frank and candid conversations about - behind closed doors.”
Carr declined to cite specific countries or leaders, or to
elaborate on what actions the Trump administration might take.
“I obviously can’t comment on diplomatic tools that we might
bring to bear,” he said. “Each country is a different diplomatic challenge, a
different situation, number one. And number two, if I started disclosing what
we might do it would be less effective.”
Some US political analysts say that President Donald Trump
and other Republicans hope support for Israel will attract Jewish voters,
including those disaffected by pro-Palestinian voices within progressive
Democratic Party circles.
At the same time, critics have credited Trump’s
confrontational, nationalistic rhetoric with encouraging right-wing extremists
and feeding a surge in activity by American hate groups. The administration has
flatly rejected that charge.
Carr said the administration’s equating of anti-Zionism with
anti-Semitism “certainly breaks new ground ... by making clear that something
that a lot of us who are involved in the Jewish world and a lot of us who are
proponents of a strong US-Israel relationship have known for quite some time,
and that is that one of the chief flavors of anti-Semitism in the world today
is the flavor that conceals itself under anti-Zionism”.
