‘I have spent my life fighting totalitarian ideologies’
Trump’s senior adviser: The president understands Jihadi threat, will obliterate it
NEW YORK – A senior foreign policy adviser to US President Donald Trump pushed back Sunday against reports suggesting he has ties to proto-fascist groups in Hungary dating back to his young adulthood.
Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, told The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York that claims he and his fellow White House colleagues Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller harbor antisemitic views are politically motivated, driven by those on the political Left aligned with movements hostile to Israel.
Gorka received a warm welcome at the conference, receiving applause at the beginning and a partial standing ovation at the end of his session with the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Yaakov Katz. He characterized himself and the Trump administration as staunchly “pro-Israel” and personally condemned antisemitism.
“I have spent my life fighting against totalitarian ideologies, and so has my father,” Gorka said. “For me, jihadis are linked to fascists because they are totalitarians – and that is why I am proud to work for this administration.”
Gorka has been the subject of a series of investigative reports published by The Forward, a Jewish American newspaper, which document his alleged associations with Vitézi Rend, a neo-Nazi group. The paper also uncovered camera footage of Gorka defending the actions of the Hungarian Guard, a militia serving the nation’s far-right Jobbik Party, itself accused of neo-Nazism.
But the newspaper has not uncovered “one sentence that is antisemitic or anti-Israel” he himself has uttered, Gorka charged.
Repeatedly distancing himself from the ideology of Nazism specifically and fascism generally, Gorka told the conference stories of his father helping Jewish neighbors throughout the war period.
He said the Trump administration hopes to stigmatize the flag of Islamic State to a point where it is universally compared “to the swastika of the Nazi Third Reich.” He also took note of the conference date, May 7, the anniversary of the German Nazi army’s surrender to Allied forces.
One critical link in The Forward’s reporting between Gorka and Vitézi Rend appears to be Gorka’s father, who was politically active after the war. But, in 1944, during Germany’s occupation of Budapest, “he escorted his fellow Jewish schoolmates who were forced to wear the Star of David to school every day and back to stop the local German forces from assaulting them or spitting on them,” Gorka charged in his remarks, citing his father’s memoir.
In recent days, US media have published conflicting reports on Gorka’s future role in the Trump administration, with some outlets claiming as recently as last week that he would leave the West Wing. Those reports are “very fake news,” Gorka asserted.
“I’d like to thank everybody who has stood by me in this administration for the past few weeks,” he said, characterizing the White House as a “well-oiled machine.”
Gorka said Tr ump’s commitment to Israel is clear, evidenced by his decision to hand his son-in-law Jared Kushner the Middle East peace portfolio at the outset of his presidency. He touted the president’s upcoming trip to Riyadh, Jerusalem and Rome as a demonstration of his commitment to religious tolerance.
Compare that to the last administration, Gorka asserted, which “didn’t take faith seriously” and treated religion “as a networking exercise – nothing more.”
The top adviser also sought to distance Trump from his predecessor, Barack Obama, on his approach to projecting force. Gorka offered two examples of Trump’s leadership style in the early days of his presidency: his decision to strike Syrian President Bashar
Assad for his use of chemical weapons on innocents and his deployment of the nation’s largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb.
“Those two events were not about Afghanistan and not about Syria,” Gorka said. “They were about a return of American leadership and sending a very simple message.”
“The president has been explicit, before January 20 and afterwards, he has absolutely no interest in invading anybody’s countries and occupying them. That is un-American, and this administration will not do it,” Gorka said.
He spoke of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State as all part of one great borderless phenomenon of Islamic extremism.
“They all feed from the same genetic code. What is that genetic code? The jihadi ideology of the brotherhood,” he said. “We know that they share the same goal, and their goal is against what we represent.”
“He understands the threat, and he will obliterate it,” Gorka continued, speaking of extremist Islam. “We will lead and, with our friends, we will destroy our enemies.” • concessions in a peace process led by Trump.
Interviewed on stage by Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz, Herzog praised Trump while questioning Netanyahu’s goals on the Palestinian issue.
“So far, Trump’s peace efforts have been impeccable,” Herzog said. “We know what Trump wants. What Netanyahu wants, no one knows. I have grave doubts about Bibi’s intentions. If he wants peace, he will enjoy political support even from my camp. But if he opts for what Bibi usually wants, he will find us a fierce opposition and we will replace him as soon as possible.”
Herzog said the only way to bring about a change in power in Israel is to form a strong centrist bloc with other centrist movements. He invited former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon to join such a bloc, along with fellow former IDF chiefs Ehud Barak, Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi; rebel Yisrael Beytenu MK Orly Levy-Abecassis; and MKs in Kulanu.
“Together, we can present a clear, centrist vision for Israel,” Herzog said.
Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said she disagrees with Herzog, calling Ya’alon too right-wing to lead a centrist bloc of parties that would challenge Netanyahu. •
Shortly after the first projections were published, Le Pen, 48, said she had congratulated Macron. But she defiantly claimed the mantle of France’s main opposition in calling on “all patriots to join us” in constituting a “new political force.”
Her deputy said this new force would not be called “National Front.”
When he moves into the Elysee Palace after his inauguration next weekend, Macron will become the eighth – and youngest – president of France’s Fifth Republic.
He plans to blend a big reduction in public spending and a relaxation of labor laws with greater investment in training.
A European integrationist and pro-NATO, he is orthodox in foreign and defense policy and shows no sign of wishing to change France’s traditional alliances or re-shape its military and peace-keeping roles in the Middle East and Africa.
His election also represents a long-awaited generational change in French politics that have been dominated by the same faces for years.
He will be the youngest leader in the current Group of Seven (G7) major nations and has elicited comparisons with youthful leaders past and present, from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to British ex-premier Tony Blair and even former US president John F. Kennedy. •