Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Monday that "anti-Israel," "anti-Jewish," and "antisemitic" rhetoric from the Democratic Party was "causing a lot of problems."
"When we look at [sic] the Jewish population being 2% of the total population, but when we look at hate crimes, nearly 60% of all hate crimes are antisemitic hate crimes," Van Duyne said. "You have to understand why members … of our community are feeling isolated."
The comments from the Texas congresswoman on "The Chris Salcedo Show" come after an 11-hour hostage situation took place within Van Duyne's district in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday, according to The New York Times.
The suspect, Malik Faisal Akram, was a 44-year-old British national demanding the release of convicted Pakistani terrorist Aafia Siddiqui. He died following a standoff with police, CBS News reported.
Van Duyne criticized the hesitancy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to label the hostage situation as domestic terrorism.
"Finally, the FBI has identified this as domestic terrorism," the congresswoman said. "I'm looking at U.S. Code 23-31 that defines domestic terrorism as activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are violations of criminal laws of the United States or any state that appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping."
"That's exactly what this was, and we knew about that moment into the kidnapping," she added.
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