Jasper Colt, Jasper Colt / USA TODAY NETWORK
A Jewish friend recently told my wife Dina and me that after Oct. 7 a flare went up and lit the sky, and the Jewish community looked around to see who was standing with them.
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, Dina and I traveled to Israel to show solidarity with Israelis and see for ourselves what happened on that terrible day. I’ll never forget our visit to Kfar Aza and meeting with the families of hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza.
This is a time for strong leadership and moral clarity, nothing less. I will always stand with Israel and the Jewish people.
Not so for Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
Casey claims that, after 18 years in Washington, he’s a serious legislator who gets things done for his constituents. But in reality, my opponent is too weak to get a vote on a straightforward bill to prevent antisemitism.
The anniversary of last year’s brutal massacre in Israel by Hamas of nearly 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans, is quickly approaching. But Casey and his colleagues are about to leave DC for the campaign trail without strengthening our laws to combat antisemitism on college campuses here at home.
This is unacceptable, and it shows how weak Casey is.
In May, a strong, bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives passed legislation that would require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.
This definition is important because it acknowledges that denying Jewish self-determination to their ancestral homeland of Israel and applying double standards to Israel are antisemitic.
Bob Casey is the lead Democrat sponsor of this legislation in the Senate, yet the bill has languished for nearly five months without a floor vote. He is a close ally of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), but when it comes to antisemitism, Casey can’t even get a vote.
This is unsurprising. After 18 years, Pennsylvanians struggle to name a single significant piece of legislation Casey has carried across the finish line.
Casey is playing a classic DC game — seek credit from the Jewish community for putting his name on the bill, while not pushing it too hard lest he risk losing support from radical, anti-Israel activists in his party.
This failure of leadership could not come at a worse time. On campuses across America, including here in Pennsylvania, hate-filled pro-Hamas protesters have attempted to obscure their antisemitism by claiming they’re targeting Zionists, not Jews.
That is a distinction without a difference: anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Bob Casey has failed to demonstrate moral clarity and stand with the Jewish community and the State of Israel. He’s all talk and no action.
Sometimes, he doesn’t even talk: When former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill told Congress that calling for the genocide of Jews would not violate the university’s code of conduct, Casey declined to call for Magill’s resignation.
I did, and she was forced to resign.
When leaders of the Pittsburgh Jewish community denounced Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) for “openly antisemitic” rhetoric, Casey stood by his endorsement of Lee for re-election.
And in 2015, Bob Casey cast a deciding vote for the Iran nuclear deal, which gave the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism access to more than $150 billion in frozen assets to fund terrorist groups like Hamas.
If Bob Casey and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had the courage to buck the pro-Hamas protesters in the streets and put the Holocaust-definition bill on the floor for a vote, the president could sign it within days.
Their lack of action is why we need to elect new leaders in November.
David McCormick, a West Point graduate and combat veteran who has been the CEO of two successful businesses, is running for US Senate in Pennsylvania.