America’s position equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism could result in breaking ties with anti-Israel countries and leaders, says diplomat Elan Carr.
By World Israel News Staff
The U.S. State Department’s special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, said that the Trump administration’s position equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism could bring an end to America’s ties with a number of foreign governments or leaders, Reuters reported on Monday.
“I will be raising that issue in bilateral meetings that I am undertaking all over the world,” Mr. Carr told the news agency. “That is something we are going to have frank and candid conversations about – behind closed doors.”
He offered no further details, nor did he cite any specific countries or leaders, Reuters said.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Mr. Carr to the position in February after vowing, at a hearing last year at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to choose a special envoy.
Addressing AIPAC in March, Secretary Pompeo said that America “stands with the Jewish people and Israel in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry,” adding that “this bigotry is taking on an insidious new form in the guise of “’anti-Zionism.’”
“President Trump has made the fight against anti-Semitism a top priority. You can see it in our actions,” Pompeo stated.
On a visit to Israel in February, Mr. Carr told Reuters that “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.”
At the Inbal hotel in Jerusalem during that trip, diplomat Carr told American Jewish leaders that he will make every effort to “eradicate the attempted distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.”
“There is no distinction,” he stated, while praising U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to combat the “scourge.”