House condemns anti-Semitic attacks but not rhetoric

The House of Representatives voted to condemn a recent attack against the Jewish community in Boulder, Colo., on Monday—but not before softening the language to attract the bipartisan support needed for its passage.

The resolution, which is nonbinding and requires neither the Senate’s approval nor the president’s signature, passed by a vote of 280 to 113. Seventy-five democrats supported it, with five more voting present. Only one Republican, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, did not support the measure; she voted present.

The resolution, introduced by freshman Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., denounced the actions of attacker Mohamed Sabry Soliman and affirmed the partnership between state, local, and federal law enforcement. Soliman, 45, is accused of throwiong a makeshift incendiary device into a crowd of demonstrators while yelling “free Palestine.” As many as a dozen people were injured at the event, designed to call for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. The FBI described the attack as an act of terror. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Soliman was in the United States illegally at the time of the attack, having remained in the country after the expiration of his B-2 visa in February of 2023.

The initial draft of Evans’ congressional resolution included a provision identifying “Free Palestine” as a slogan that “calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.”

That language was deleted before the bill came to a vote—a game-time decision that Evans, the resolution’s sponsor, said gave it a better chance of success.

“We worked back and forth across the aisle three separate times, trying to find language [Democrats] could agree to,” Evans told me on Tuesday morning. “We played with and adjusted the language to the point where we knew that at least a significant chunk of the Democrats would be okay with this. I would have personally liked to keep that language in there, but this is just an example of the bipartisan nature of the resolution.”

The bill required a two-thirds majority, or 260 votes, to succeed on Monday. Republicans hold 220 seats in the House.

Evans’ resolution comes on the heels of several similar attacks against Jews—an issue that has split Democrats between support for the Jewish community and a criticism of Israel’s ongoing conflict with Gaza. Some lawmakers saw the resolution’s mention of “Free Palestine” as a needlessly political inclusion.

“He’s not seriously concerned with combating anti-Semitism in America. This is not a serious effort,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters at a Monday news conference. “That resolution is an embarrassment. It’s not serious. It’s a joke.”

A separate resolution considered at the same time listed a set of three other acts of anti-Semitic violence, including the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington and the arson attack at the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania.

When asked about the end-goal of the congressional resolution, Evans described it as an attempt to call out the root of the problem.

“You can’t fix something if you can’t at least identify the problem,” Evans said. “It all starts with identifying the ‘why’—why does this keep happening? In this case, it’s unfortunately pretty simple.”