Protesters spew hate outside the White House. Is Biden listening?

Remember what happened to the rapper Ye, better known as Kanye West?
Two years ago, he made bizarre, antisemitic comments – and the whole internet came after him. Ye lost a lucrative deal with Adidas as well as other business ties. Twitter suspended his account. 
Fast-forward to now. Would people still care that much about blatant rhetoric against Jews? 
Given the seeming tolerance for widespread protests and violence by pro-Palestinian demonstrators in response to the Hamas-Israel war, I have to wonder. 
The hysterical and obstructive demonstrations that have plagued U.S. college campuses after Hamas started the conflict with its Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel have spread far beyond the quad. 
DEI is unraveling at our universities.Good riddance to a failed and divisive bureaucracy.
The conflict has become a huge campaign headache for President Joe Biden in recent months, with pro-Palestinian supporters in the United States threatening to withdraw their support from the president if he doesn’t change course. 
Yet, Biden also has failed to call out antisemitism as forcefully as he should for obvious political reasons.
Take what happened this weekend in Washington, D.C. 
A protest Saturday outside the White House against Biden’s support of Israel attracted thousands of people from around the nation. Many of the protesters wore keffiyehs and masks as they surrounded the White House grounds. 
It was disconcerting to see, with some protesters holding signs supporting “martyrdom,” “jihad” and “intifada.” Another read, “f— Israel, stand with Hamas.”
Other people were chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here.” Others yelled “kill another Zionist now.” 
It doesn’t get much more antisemitic – or anti-American – than that. 
We have broad constitutional protections to say stupid and hateful things in this country, and our right to free speech is one I firmly support. 
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When speech crosses over to vandalism or violence, however, it is a completely different situation. And that’s what happened in Washington.
Protesters vandalized several statues in Lafayette Square, near the White House, with spray paint and signs. Some of the graffiti proclaimed hateful things like “kill pigs” and “f— pigs,” and signs reading slogans such as “Hands off Rafah! Stop the genocide!” were attached to statues.
The vandals seemed to get away with it, too. According to NBC News, police “attempted to arrest one person who climbed a statue, but members of the crowd intervened.”
That’s far too tepid of a response for this kind of criminal behavior. 
In a statement, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates addressed the rhetoric at the protest: “President Biden has always been clear that every American has the right to peacefully express their views. But he has also always been clear that antisemitism, violent rhetoric, and endorsing murderous terrorist organizations like Hamas is repugnant, dangerous, and against everything we stand for as a country.”
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That’s better than some of Biden’s responses in the past, but he should have called out the vandalism even more forcefully and directly. 
No doubt, such misbehavior will get more pronounced as we get closer to the election in November. The country has to be ready.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.