Elan Carr, the United States’ new envoy to combat antisemitism, told American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem that he will work to end the “attempted distinction” between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, while praising U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to combat the “scourge.”

“I will work to eradicate the attempted distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. There is no distinction,” he told U.S. Jewish leaders gathered at Jerusalem’s Inbal Hotel as part of the annual Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations summit.

“There is a greater rise in new antisemitism that clothes itself as anti-Zionism. The antisemitism of the European street, of the college campus and of those that have embraced the notion that the Jewish people don’t have a right to their homeland,” said Carr.

“Zionism wasn’t born in 1948 or with [Theodor] Herzl or with the First Zionist Congress. Zionism started with Parshat Lech-Lecha, with Moses and on the banks of the river of Babylon,” he said. “Anyone who attempts to deny the Jewish religion its basic faith tenets, its rights to a homeland is wading into antisemitism. And I will fight it,” he declared.