Gabriel Groisman, a senior advisor to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, stopped by the Arutz Sheva-Israel National News studio in Jerusalem as he leads a solidarity mission of 15 chiefs of staff of US state governors.
He explains that the delegation is in Israel to understand more about the war and to understand the "core of what's driving antisemitism around the United States, which is this misinformation campaign against Israel. They want to come and see it for themselves so they can come back and bring the truth of what's actually happening in Israel to their governors and states."
As part of the mission, the delegation visited the kibbutzim that were ravaged by the October 7th massacre, looking back on the experience, Groisman says that although it was not his first time, "Every time it is so difficult. It is so difficult to see the devastation of what Hamas did on that terrible day."
He compares what he saw now to what he saw when he visited shortly after the massacre: "In November, it looked like an army base, it was total chaos. Today, you see a kibbutz which they beautified again. Parts of it are back to their original beauty, which is even more difficult to see because then you make a turn and see the rows of homes that were devastated and the people who were murdered and taken. You get to see the 'Ying and the Yang' of life in the south of Israel and what happened on that day."
Groisman relates how the delegation members were "shaken to the core. They all said the same thing, which is that they were all familiar with what happened on October 7th, they were familiar with what happened at the Nova music festival, but nothing compared with being there and hearing stories from the kids who were there. They were very glad that they came to see it themselves."
As part of the mission, Groisman's delegation will also visit Judea and Samaria. In this regard, he says that going to the region is a statement: "The entire Land of Israel is the Land of Israel and we can't make differentiations between different areas. Most of the people in our delegation are Christians, and the holy sites of the Bible, both of the Jews and the Christians, are mostly in Judea and Samaria, behind this invisible Green Line that they pretend they don't cross, and it's critical. It's critical also for them to see because, in the United States, we're seeing statements about what's happening in the 'West Bank' and with violence from one side or the other. So we're going to take them there to see it and to understand the security situation there because today all eyes are on Gaza and on Hamas. But tomorrow, when Abbas dies we all know there's going to be a civil war in the Palestinian territories and the cities controlled by the Palestinian Authority. We have to start educating our policymakers in the United States today on that."
Groisman says that for the first few days after the massacre, Jews in the US thought that people would rally around them and that the wave of antisemitism would stop because the world would see the terrible reality. However he notes that the opposite occurred, "It's opened the floodgates of antisemitism around the United States and around the world."
According to Groisman, while the Biden administration's support of Israel was strong at the beginning, it has waned with time. He thinks that Israel should "take into account what the US and its allies think, but Israel can not allow the US and others to define what Israel does for its own security. If Israel needs to finish the job in Gaza, which I think they do, they need to do it no matter if the US and the EU and all these other supposed friends support it there. The same in the north, Israel shouldn't be asking permission to push Hezbollah back behind the Litani River, they should be doing it on behalf of the 80,000 residents who are displaced." He believes that the Biden administration will eventually come along, "I think what we're seeing out of the Biden administration is a little bit of barking, political positioning for the upcoming election. But at the end of the day, I believe this at my core, that even the Biden administration and the Europeans understand that Israel must defend itself even on the northern border, and at the end of the day they will stand with Israel, because they stand with winners, and Israel is that."
He explains that public safety is mostly handled by local governments and "the safety of Jewish communities around the country is at stake and the governors and mayors have to make these decisions of how to protect the community and how many resources to put into it. A lot of the Antisemitism is being hidden behind anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment. So the governors need to learn the nuances of the conflict so they could answer the lies that are put in front of them."
Groisman describes the current situation in the US and how to fix it: "Right now the Jewish community by and large in the US is not safe, it does not feel safe and there's good reason for it. We've seen violent clashes all over the country. We need our governors, mayors, and Federal Government to stand behind law enforcement to protect the Jewish community all over the country."
"We've seen such a rise in antisemitism at universities all across our country, not just in the Ivy Leagues. Our universities are funded by foreign entities, by countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China. We need to get rid of that foreign funding at universities. There's no reason why our universities need to be funded by countries that hate us countries that are pushing ideologies to our youth," he adds.
Groisman explains that it is possible to legislate against such funding and that there are hearings taking place in Congress to do so. "First let's shine a light on the foreign funding. When people see the amount of money that's going to these universities, they're going to start asking the questions and then the legislation will follow."
Groisman demands that universities protect the Jewish community as they would any other group, "No university in the US would put up with rallies and chants of genocide of the black community or of the gay community, nor should they, but when it comes to the Jewish community, every excuse in the book is brought up as to why it's ok. Treat the Jewish community the same way you treat every other community. That's all we're asking for."