In line with a brand new disclosure, Rep. Elise Stefanik’s latest go to to Israel was paid for by the Jewish Coverage Heart, whose board of fellows consists of people recognized as anti-Muslim by the Southern Poverty Regulation Heart.
Rep. Elise Stefanik’s latest Israel journey to fulfill with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was funded by a gaggle with ties to a number of people who’re generally labeled anti-Muslim hate figures, in response to a journey disclosure filed in the present day with the U.S. Home.
Stefanik, a New York Republican who chairs the Home Republican Convention, conveyed to Netanyahu the “Home Republicans’ unwavering assist for Israel, our most treasured ally,” in response to her web site. She additionally delivered remarks on the Knesset, the place she criticized President Biden’s choice to pause a cargo of bombs over Israel’s bombing in Rafah. “I’ve been clear at residence and I can be clear right here: There isn’t a excuse for an American president to dam support to Israel—support that was duly handed by the Congress, or to ease sanctions on Iran, paying a $6 billion ransom to the world’s main state sponsor of terror, or to dither and conceal whereas our buddies battle for his or her lives,” Stefanik stated earlier than Israel’s legislature.
In line with a brand new disclosure, Stefanik’s journey was paid for by the conservative Jewish Coverage Heart, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that describes its mission as “educat[ing] the American public about Israel, international affairs and home problems with significance to the Jewish neighborhood.” The group spent almost $48,000 on the journey, together with on business-class airfare tickets for the consultant and stays at luxurious accommodations. Stefanik’s chief of employees, Patrick Hester, joined her on the journey.
The Jewish Coverage Heart has a number of people on its board of fellows who’ve been recognized as anti-Muslim hate figures by the Southern Poverty Regulation Heart (SPLC) and different left-leaning teams.
Fellow Daniel Pipes, the president of the rightwing assume tank the Center East Discussion board, was listed as one of many high 5 purveyors of anti-Muslim misinformation by the Heart for American Progress in its 2011 report Worry, Inc. on the roots of Islamophobia in America. Georgetown College’s Bridge Initiative, a multi-year analysis challenge on Islamophobia, has an intensive profile of Pipes’ feedback over a number of a long time, as he has argued for numerous types of discrimination in opposition to Muslims to counter the specter of Islamic terrorism. The initiative says Pipes “helps racial profiling and the surveillance of Muslim communities and believes Muslims in america search to infiltrate and overthrow the nation.”
One other fellow, David Horowitz, runs a corporation that SPLC labels an anti-Muslim hate group known as the David Horowitz Freedom Heart. The Freedom Heart says its mission is to “fight the efforts of the unconventional left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this nation because it makes an attempt to defend itself in a time of terror.” Based in 1988, the David Horowitz Freedom Heart operates as a hub for a number of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-Black misinformation initiatives, together with the web sites FrontPage and Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch that distort information tales and historical past to depict Muslims as terrorists and rapists.
On its web site, Jewish Coverage Heart republishes articles from the Heart for Safety Coverage, an anti-Muslim assume tank that was based by Frank Gaffney Jr. The SPLC considers the Heart for Safety Coverage to be an anti-Muslim hate group and calls Gaffney “one in every of America’s most infamous Islamophobes.” The Jewish Coverage Heart has hosted Gaffney on panels to debate international coverage points.
Stefanik’s speech in Israel denounced the Biden administration’s warnings to Netanyahu’s authorities to contemplate civilian casualties in its army response in Gaza. Final month, Home Republican management took up a international support package deal—stalled within the chamber for months, after a model cleared the U.S. Senate—that directed some $26.3 billion in further support to Israel. The measure handed the Home on April 20 by a vote of 366-58 and was signed days later by Biden.
This election cycle, the PAC of lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has given $284,000 to Stefanik’s marketing campaign in conduit contributions by way of April 30, putting her in its high 10 recipients amongst Home Republicans. Earlier this month, Stefanik was requested on Fox Information about being talked about as a possible choose for vice chairman by former President Donald Trump, a risk she didn’t rule out.
