Photo Credit: US govt
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)

A vicious anti-Semitic slur flung by a Democratic member of Congress on Monday against Israeli Jews living in Judea and Samaria hit one Jewish voter square in the face with the ice-cold memory of another time, when similar words were spoken.

With just one word, U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia proved to anyone who bothered to pay attention that the Democratic Party is no longer the traditional safe haven of the American Jew.

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Speaking in Philadelphia at an pre-Democratic National Convention event sponsored by a group from the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the House Armed Services Committee member compared the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria to “termites,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Outraged, Sara Z. told JewishPress.com that anti-Semitism in the American Democratic Party is growing by leaps and bounds.

In an exclusive interview, Sara (who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal from neighbors) said the phenomenon is “similar to the rising anti-Semitism in Britain’s Labour Party.” She said it has destroyed a party where Jews once felt welcomed — and that she could see that day coming for Democrats in the U.S., maybe sooner than they realized. “Perhaps Senator Hank Johnson has forgotten history, or is this another way to echo Adolf Hitler’s sentiments? In 1938 the anti-Semitic rhetoric was that Jews were “vermin,” she said.

“In 2016, we are now “termites.” It seems like nothing changes. In the era of ‘Black Lives Matter’ it seems that once again, the Jews are the world’s scapegoats, the disposable ones,” she continued.

“Do we never learn from history?”

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Johnson’s address to the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation included the following remarks:

“There has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever-increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.

“It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other,” Johnson continued.

“And then with the building of walls and the building of check points that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.

“You see one home after another being appropriated by Jewish people who come in to claim that [Arab] land just because somebody did not spend the night there,” he said. ‘“The home their ancestors lived in for generations becomes an Israeli home and a flag goes up. The Palestinians are barred from flying flags in their own neighborhoods.

“The fact is the Israeli government, which is the most right-wing government ever to exist in the State of Israel in its history, the most right wing government, you got a guy like Trump who is now the Minister of Defense in Israel calling the shots on defense,” he said.

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Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.