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Trump Accuses US Jews Who Vote for Democrats of Being ‘Very Disloyal’ to Israel by Ben Cohen
US President Donald Trump, Aug. 21, 2019. Photo: Reuters.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered some clarification but no remorse for his earlier comments accusing American Jews who vote for the Democratic Party of showing “total ignorance” and “disloyalty.”
Speaking to reporters on the White House South Lawn, the president was asked to specify to whom or what American Jews were being disloyal. “In my opinion, you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel,” Trump said. On Tuesday, Trump had asserted that Jews who voted for Democratic candidates were showing “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
After several days of verbal sparring with progressive Democratic Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (MI) and Ilhan Omar (MN) — whose planned political tour of the West Bank last week was called off by the Israeli authorities shortly after a tweet from Trump urging the cancellation of the visit — Trump on Wednesday repeated his accusation that the Democratic Party as a whole was now hostile to Israel.
“In my opinion, the Democrats have gone very far away from Israel, I cannot understand how they can do that,” Trump said. “They don’t want to fund Israel. They want to take away foreign aid to Israel. They want to do a lot of bad things to Israel.”
The parents of the late Lt. Hadar Goldin — an IDF soldier who fell in battle in the Gaza Strip…
On a day when he also accused Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of being “nasty” and derided Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as akin to “a golfer who can’t putt,” Trump was in similarly combative mood over the negative reaction to his comments about Jews and the Democratic Party. Among his early posts on Twitter was a note of thanks to Wayne Allyn Root, a populist right-wing commentator, for his “very nice words” about Trump’s supposedly messianic status in Israel.
“President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world…” Trump quoted Root as saying.
“The Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel,” the quote from Root continued. “They love him like he is the second coming of God.”
Trump went on to approvingly include Root’s frustrated assessment of the political mood of American Jews: “But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense!”
In the 2016 US presidential election, a solid 71 percent of US Jews voted for Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton — a figure entirely consistent with American Jewish voting patterns and party loyalties for the past century.
“We’ve woken up in a situation where a guy who wants us to believe that he’s our friend legitimizes the credibility of the most pernicious, hideous, constant antisemitic stereotype in our history: ‘You can’t trust the Jews,’” Abraham Foxman — the national director emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “It’s outrageous, it’s dangerous, and I don’t know who can get him to understand.”
When it came to Trump’s depiction of American Jews as a politically-hostile bloc, Foxman observed that “a part of antisemitism is seeing Jews not as individuals, but as stereotypes.”
He continued: “Any construct that he [Trump] sets up is by definition a bigoted one, because it’s looking at the subjects as ‘Jews,’ and not as individuals.”
Many US Jewish organizations responded to Trump by pointing out that Jews did not constitute a homogenous voting bloc, and that Israel had traditionally been a bipartisan issue that united Republicans and Democrats in support.
“America is better with a two-party system,” Rabbi Marvin Hier — dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) — told The Algemeiner. “The greatest danger for Jews is if we have only one party.”
In a statement released earlier on Wednesday, the SWC pointed out that it was “Democratic President Jimmy Carter who presided over the Camp David Accords and Republican President Ronald Reagan who helped open the gates of freedom for Soviet Jewry.
The statement went on to include Trump in the pantheon of pro-Israel American presidents. “It was Democratic President Harry Truman that made the historic decision that the US would recognize the State of Israel and Republican President Donald Trump who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem,” the SWC said.
Hier — who recited the traditional Jewish blessing at Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 — told The Algemeiner bluntly, “Without a two-party system, we’re finished.”
He added: “People should not have to think alike. A democracy needs different points of view, and people are free to adopt different points of view.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) continued its defense of Trump on Wednesday, saying that in portraying the Democratic Party as an adversary of Israel, the president had merely been “pointing out the obvious.”
“We take the President seriously, not literally,” the RJC declared on Twitter. “President Trump is pointing out the obvious: for those who care about Israel, the position of many elected Democrats has become anti-Israel.”
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(photo credit: JABOTINSKY ARCHIVES)
During the inauguration of a memorial to the victims of the Siege of Leningrad in Jerusalem’s Sacher Park on January 24, 2020, before the climax of Holocaust remembrance events at which Russian President Vladimir Putin was given a central platform, we were stunned to hear a rendition of The Blue Kerchief (Siniy
Belgian carnival to double down on antisemitic displays
Giant figures are seen during the 87th carnival parade of Aalst February 15, 2015
The annual carnival in Aalst, Belgium, is expected to take place on Sunday with even more antisemitic elements than in previous years.
Aalst’s organizers have sold hundreds of “rabbi kits” for revelers to dress as hassidic Jews in the carnival’s parade. The kit includes oversized noses, sidelocks (peyot) and black hats. The organizers plan to bring back floats similar to the one displayed in 2019 featuring oversized dolls of Jews, with rats on their shoulders, holding banknotes.
Pope Appears to Give Thumbs Down to Trump’s Mideast Peace Plan
Pope Francis waves as he arrives at the Basilica of Saint Nicholas in the southern Italian coastal city of Bari, Italy February 23, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli.
Pope Francis on Sunday warned against “inequitable solutions” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying they would only be a prelude to new crises, in an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace proposal.
Francis made his comments in the southern Italian port city of Bari, where he traveled to conclude a meeting of bishops from all countries in the Mediterranean basin.
Israel, Palestinian Authority Agree to End Trade Dispute: Officials
Palestinians walk past a shop selling fruits in Ramallah, Feb. 20, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Mohamad Torokman.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have reached an agreement to end a five-month long trade dispute, officials said on Thursday.
The dispute, which opened a new front in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, began in September when the PA announced a boycott of Israel calves. The PA exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under interim peace deals.
Disturbing Images Emerge of Astounding Antisemitism at Belgian Carnival
Antisemitic caricatures on display at the annual carnival in Aalst, Belgium. Photo: Raphael Ahren via Twitter.
Disturbing images emerged on Sunday of the annual carnival at Aalst, Belgium, showing an astounding number of antisemitic themes, costumes, displays and statements.
Israeli journalist Raphael Ahren documented people dressed as caricatures of Orthodox Jews, a fake “wailing wall” attacking critics of the parade, blatantly antisemitic characters and puppets wearing traditional Jewish clothes and sporting huge noses.
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KEN COHEN :UN Sinks to a New Low with BDS-Inspired Blacklist
The stench of anti-Semitism always hovers over Switzerland’s Lake Geneva when the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is meeting there. The foul emanations reached a new nadir last week with UNHRC’s publication of a “database” of companies doing business in the disputed territories in Israel.
Following the publication of the list, Bruno Stagno Ugarte, deputy director for advocacy of NGO Human Rights Watch, stated, “The long-awaited release of the U.N. settlement business database should put all companies on notice: To do business with illegal settlements [sic] is to aid in the commission of war crimes.”
David Suissa : Bad Globalism: China Controls our Meds
One of the many things that annoys me about politicians is how sure they are of themselves. Everything is black and white. Every idea is good or bad. Take globalism, for example. You either love it or hate it. It works or it doesn’t.
Another thing that annoys me is how so much of a politician’s life revolves around power: Do everything you can to get it, and everything you can to keep it.
Why am I ranting? Because, while our politicians have been consumed with power and the media with the fights over power, a threat to our nation has been virtually ignored.
Alex Traiman : Challengers Gantz and Lapid Attack Netanyahu-Trump Relationship
Blue and White Party leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid are establishing their diplomatic credentials in the immediate run-up to Israel’s March 2 election with an insult to a U.S. administration that has arguably provided Israel with more diplomatic gains than any previous administration.
The Times of Israel reported that at a campaign stop in front of English-speaking Israelis, Gantz accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “of neglecting bipartisan ties in favor of exclusive support from U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party,” under the headline “Gantz pledges to mend ties with U.S. Democrats if elected.”
CLIFFORD D. MAY : The Return of the Monroe Doctrine
Bipartisanship was in short supply at the State of the Union address earlier this month—with one notable exception.
Nancy Pelosi had been looking dyspeptic, shuffling the papers she would later rip to shreds, when President Donald Trump reminded his audience that “the United States is leading a 59-nation diplomatic coalition against the socialist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.”
Suddenly, the House Speaker applauded. Trump then introduced “the true and legitimate president of Venezuela: Juan Guaidó.”
Melanie Phillips : Sanitizing Soros through Guilt by Association
The law professor Alan Dershowitz has thrown a legal hand-grenade into America’s political civil war by claiming to have evidence that former President Barack Obama “personally asked” the FBI to investigate someone “on behalf” of Obama’s “close ally,” billionaire financier George Soros.
He made his cryptic remark in an interview defending U.S. President Donald Trump against claims he interfered in the prosecution of his former adviser, Roger Stone.