Tim Scott weaponizes people’s worst instincts with Israel comments | Opinion

The Republican Party used the phony issue of “wokeness” to implement book bans and censorship laws in several states, including the Carolinas. Led by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Republicans are using a very serious issue – Hamas’s horrific terror attack on Israeli citizens – to double down on their growing tendency to punish people who say things they don’t like.

“The foreign national students on visas who are protesting against our ally Israel should be sent back to their country,” Scott tweeted on the site formerly known as Twitter.

Here’s a black dude who has likely been taunted with “go back to Africa” taunts, like many of us have, advocating something as disgusting, on par with Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim ban. Scott has since called for withholding federal funding from colleges he says promote antisemitism, which is really just an attempt to silence dissenters.

I grieve for the Israelis slaughtered by Hamas in an attack designed to provoke a larger war, which is unfolding and unpredictable. I grieve for Jewish and Muslim Americans who don’t feel supported during a time as dark and unnerving as this. And I abhor the decision by far too many people to either excuse Hamas’s atrocities – as though they are just righteous freedom fighters striking a blow against an oppressor rather than the thugs they clearly are – or have remained silent in the face of evil.

That doesn’t mean I will be in favor of policy by Israel, and backed by the U.S., that will lead to more death and carnage, and the killing of innocent Palestinians. Because their humanity matters, too. But that’s where we are headed anyway. Maybe we’ve already arrived. Scott wants to take it further, to support blind bloodlust abroad and anti-democratic policies and proclivities on our own soil.

Scott pretends he’s taking a moral stance against Hamas and antisemitism.

“It’s devastating to see people in our country celebrating a terrorist organization for the annihilation of our Jewish brothers and sisters. Hamas wants to wipe Israel off the map, but they won’t stop there,” Scott tweeted. “They also want to eliminate all Jews on the planet and destroy Western democracy. Anyone who stands up in support of terrorism and the inhumane murder of Jews should have their visa revoked. We have to stop indoctrinating students with the mindset that America is evil and that Western democracies are somehow oppressors.”

He breezily conflates those siding with the butchers that are Hamas with those who simply don’t want Palestinian children to be slaughtered in response to a slaughter of Israeli children.

Ron DeSantis, who visited Myrtle Beach Friday during his campaign for the Republican nomination Scott is also vying for, has been franker in his ugliness, saying all Palestinians are antisemitic. It’s an attempt to dehumanize a people to justify killing them in large numbers. It’s a familiar tactic. As a wise person once said, history may not repeat, but it rhymes. And, boy, is it rhyming today.

While Scott is busy weaponizing people’s worst instincts during a time of fear, anger and uncertainty, he’s ignoring a more immediate and tangible problem he could use his influence to try and resolve. Republicans in the House can’t even decide on a leader. It means the U.S. can’t send aid to Israel or Ukraine, or significant humanitarian help for innocent Palestinians who are also victims of Hamas.

Scott isn’t using his stature in the Senate to tell fellow Republicans in the other chamber to grow up. He’d rather focus on punishing college students who dare say things he doesn’t want them to say.

There’s plenty of blame to go around for the crisis in Israel and Gaza, which dates back centuries before Hamas’s most recent terror attack. In the U.S., we need leaders with moral clarity and a vision to make things better where they can. Instead, we are stuck with men like Scott willing to make things worse if that’s what it takes to win a nomination he likely won’t anyway.