CNSNews.com loves the right-wing Zionist Organization of America — and, more specifically, ZOA’s love of Donald Trump — so much, it ran two separate articles on Trump receiving the exact same award from the group. So when CNS had to do cleanup after Trump leaned into anti-Semitism by claiming that American Jews aren’t loyal enough to Israel at a ZOA event, managing editor Michael W. Chapman knew exactly who to call on to rebut the criticism in a Dec. 6 article:
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), an American Jewish organization that defends the interests of Israel and Jewish people, denounced a letter from 12 Democrats that called on GOP congressional leaders to condemn alleged “anti-Semitic remarks” by former President Donald Trump.
The ZOA also praised Trump’s comments stressing that “there are many American Jews who are not doing the right thing for Israel, and some of them are even serving in Congress.”
After noting that the letter — led by Rep. Steve Cohen, who is Jewish — stated that Trump furthered an “anti-Semitic trope” by portraying Jews as having dual loyalty to the U.S. and Israel (as well as Trump’s whining that American Jews tend to support Democrats), let ZOA attack Cohen without actually rebutting the specific claim:
Commenting on the letter, ZOA Director of Government Relations Dan Pollack said, “It is inappropriate for Congressman Cohen to use antisemitism as a political weapon. The fight against anti-Semitism is too important, with real victims in the United States, to deploy it like a hammer whenever a political rival speaks.”
“The comments of former President Trump are true,” said Pollack, “there are many American Jews who are not doing the right thing for Israel, and some of them are even serving in Congress.”
“Most of the signers of this letter by Rep. Cohen are reliable opponents of everything Israel does and have also signed letters threatening to reduce our strategic cooperation with Israel unless they adopt the policies advocated by Israel’s enemies,” he added.
From there, Chapman helped ZOA play whataboutism by spouting old talking points:
In relation to perceived anti-Semites in Congress, Mort Klein, the ZOA’s national president, said, “ZOA strongly applauds Leader Kevin McCarthy for sending a clear and powerful message that there will be negative consequences to Jew-hatred and unwarranted Israel-bashing which undermine America’s longstanding position of maintaining strong U.S.-Israel relations as a bulwark of our Mideast policy.”
“We urge Leader McCarthy to remove other bigots Rashida Tlaib, AOC, Jamal Bowman, Cori Bush and Betty McCollum from their committees as well,” added Klein.
ZOA Board Chairman David Schoen noted the “classic anti-Semitism espoused by Rep. Omar,” and said Rep. Cohen’s “time would be much better spent clearing out the bigotry among his colleagues than playing politics with such an important subject.”
Chapman did not allow Cohen or anyone else respond to ZOA’s attacks.
Interestingly, Chapman and CNS did not call on ZOA for cleanup duty after Trump dined with anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. Then again, CNS has been trying to censor that story.