He dug the hole deeper by insisting that Hitler had not used gas on his own citizens. On the first day of Passover, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told a room full of reporters that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was worse than Adolf Hitler because Hitler didn't even “ sink to the level” of using chemical weapons. (The perpetrator of the majority of the bomb threat calls is allegedly an American-Israeli Jewish teenager living in Israel another suspect was arrested in connection with eight of the cases.)Īnd yet, while by then the White House had begun to forcefully condemn anti-Semitism and rue the terror sowed in communities by the bomb threats, the administration continued to appear to fail to understand the unique impact of the Holocaust. The White House came under harsh criticism for appearing to dodge the issue by acting decidedly sluggish and halting in its public response. In the weeks following that statement, Jews across the country were terrorized by bomb threats called into Jewish Community Centers and acts of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. Tim Kaine called it “Holocaust denial.”Īnd yet, rather than correct or amend the statement, the White House claimed it was simply acknowledging more universal understanding of how many groups suffered at the hands of the Nazis. That omission was criticized by Jews and non-Jews alike. It was distinctly unusual for a sitting president to fail to acknowledge the terror inflicted on Jews in particular. “It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror.” “It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust,” the White House statement began on January 27. Then, once in office, the Trump White House issued a conspicuously anodyne statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews at all. The younger Trump later vigorously denied the phrase was a reference to the Holocaust. likened the press’s attitude toward his father to the experience of concentration camps, noting that the media would be “warming up the gas chamber” if his father spoke or acted like Clinton. These strange missteps weren’t limited to Trump himself. In the waning weeks of the campaign, Trump also spoke about a global cabal of financiers meeting in secret to help Clinton and undermine US sovereignty, the type of conspiratorial comments that my colleague Yochi Dreazen noted have been used to justify the hatred of Jews for decades. (That type of star has long been known as a “Star of David.”) The campaign claimed it was a “sheriff’s star,” but later replaced it with a different image. It was widely seen as a nod to anti-Semitic canards about Jews and power. It hasn’t been for Trump.ĭuring the 2016 election campaign, the Trump camp flirted with anti-Semitic memes and images, including tweeting a six-pointed star atop a pile of money next to an image of Hillary Clinton. Before taking a look at what he said, it’s worth remembering why there was so much unease in the first place. More than 7,800 Jews signed a petition asking the museum to deny the president a platform. Those types of administration stumbles, following a campaign that failed to forcefully reject anti-Semitic rhetoric and imagery, meant Trump’s appearance sparked protests among Jewish groups and quiet backroom rumbling among museum board members. The speech, and a similar statement made to the World Jewish Congress earlier this week, followed months of Holocaust-related gaffes, including official White House statements that quite literally avoided mentioning Jewish victims of the Holocaust and press secretary Sean Spicer’s baffling comments that implied Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad was worse than Hitler and referred to Nazi death camps as “Holocaust centers.” Solemn as they were, the most remarkable aspect of the speech were not the words themselves, but the identity of the man giving them - and the continued controversy over the administration’s past comments about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. “We will never, ever be silent in the face of evil again.” “Those who deny the Holocaust are accomplice to this horrible evil,” he said in remarks in the rotunda of the US Capitol commemorating the Days of Remembrance surrounding Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. He highlighted the uniquely Jewish nature of the tragedy, derided Holocaust denial as well as anti-Semitism, and bluntly labeled the mass slaughter of European Jewry “history’s darkest hour.” President Donald Trump delivered the type of strong, somber speech about the Holocaust Tuesday morning that US presidents from both parties have made for decades.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |