Rubio Addresses Israeli Antisemitism Conference by Video: 'No Compromise, No Nuance' on Antisemitism
On May 28, 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered pre-recorded video remarks to the Israeli Ministerial Conference on Combating Antisemitism, hosted by Israel's Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. In the address, Rubio said there can be 'no compromise' with antisemitism and 'no nuanced separation' between hatred of Israel and hatred of the Jewish people, and he announced that the United States has implemented a new visa policy to prevent foreign nationals from coming to the country to foment hatred against the Jewish community.
Unable to attend in person, Rubio opened by thanking Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar for the invitation. Quoting former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir — 'It took Moses forty years to find the only place in the Middle East with no oil' — he said Israel's wealth lay not under the ground but in its people: 'The Jewish people, exiles, pilgrims, and dreamers from around the world made the desert bloom into a hi-tech superpower.' Israel accomplished that miracle, he said, not by abandoning its history and identity but by embracing them, while some of its neighbors chose war, impoverishing their own people in a futile effort to destroy Israel.
Rubio called antisemitism 'the world's oldest bigotry' and 'also the world's most futile.' Egyptian pharaohs, Roman emperors, Persian shahs and Middle Eastern despots have all sought to destroy the nation of Israel, he said, and 'Adolf Hitler dreamed of a world without Jews, an idea he shares with Hamas.' Today, he said, 'these regimes and empires have crumbled into dust, but Israel stands, and the Jewish people prosper.' He said he prayed for the day the entire world would recognize the futility of antisemitism and leaders would abandon self-destructive hatred to forge a new future in partnership with Israel, building on the Abraham Accords.
Rubio recalled standing beside Sa'ar earlier this year at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem and reflecting on the meaning of the words 'never again.' That meaning, he said, was brought home to every American the previous week, on May 21, when Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, were murdered in cold blood outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Yaron was a Christian born in Germany who came to love the Jewish state; Sarah was from Kansas and loved Yaron; they dreamed of marrying in Jerusalem, Rubio said. Their killer, after being arrested, proudly screamed 'Free, Free Palestine' — words that, Rubio said, now serve as a battle-cry for the death of Jews and the destruction of Israel, horrors that must never again be allowed.
'There can be no compromise with antisemitism. There can be no nuanced separation of hatred of Israel and hatred of the Jewish people,' Rubio said. Those who call to boycott Israel are calling to boycott their Jewish neighbors and classmates; those who call for violence against Israelis are calling for violence against Jews; those who call for the destruction of Israel are calling for the destruction of the Jewish people, he said. As the United States extends its prayers to Yaron and Sarah's loved ones, he said, it must stand in solidarity with Israel: 'There can be no coexistence with evil. There can be no nuance to hatred.'
Rubio said that under President Trump, the United States will stand with the Jewish people. The United States has implemented a vigorous new visa policy that will prevent foreign nationals from coming to the United States to foment hatred against our Jewish community, he said, and it is holding international organizations and nations accountable for rhetoric against Israel that resurfaces in the manifesto of monsters like Yaron and Sarah's killer. He closed by saying an eventual light can be seen at the end of this long tunnel of suffering, and that one can imagine a Middle East in which the Abraham Accords eventually reign. (Source: U.S. Department of State)
Source: U.S. Department of State
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国国务卿卢比奥2025年5月28日向以色列打击反犹主义部长级会议发表预录视频讲话（美国国务院官方视频截图）。 / Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers pre-recorded video remarks to the Israeli Ministerial Conference on Combating Antisemitism on May 28, 2025 (still from the U.S. Department of State's official video).
