Trump evasive over ‘Democrats hate Jews’ remark to donors
DONALD TRUMP’S press secretary has refused to confirm whether or not the US President truly believes the Democrats “hate” Jewish people.
Mr Trump said last week that the Democratic Party, which controls the House of Representatives, had “become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party, and that’s too bad.”
But he was later reported to have told donors to the Republican National Congress that Democrats “hate” Jewish people, according to a person who was at the private event and told AP they heard the remark.
His spokeswoman Sarah Sanders declined to confirm or deny
Donald Trump whether Mr Trump really thinks Democrats hate Jews, despite multiple questions from White House reporters on Monday.
“The president has been an unwavering and committed ally to Israel and the Jewish people and, frankly, the remarks that have been made by a number of Democrats and failed to be called out by Democrat leadership is frankly abhorrent and it’s sad,” Ms Sanders said. “It’s something that should be called by name. It shouldn’t be put in a watered-down resolution.”
On Tuesday Mr Trump tweeted a quotation from Jexodus, a new rightwing Jewish pressure group, that claimed: “There is antisemitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.” Democrats have been at the centre of a passionate debate on Israel and antisemitism after a series of statements by Congressman Ilhan Omar, the representative for Minnesota. Ms Omar recently suggested Israel’s supporters were pushing US lawmakers to take a pledge of “allegiance” to a foreign country. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than to their interests of their own nation is listed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as an example of contemporary antisemitism in public life.
THREE YEARS ago, Bernie Sanders’ quixotic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was garnering unexpected success.
But it was only in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s eventual defeat by Donald Trump that it became clear how much the Vermont senator had reshaped the Democrats’ political landscape.
As he mounts a second bid for the nomination, Mr Sanders’ left-wing policy positions — a steep hike in the minimum wage, free college tuition, a radical reform of the private healthcare system — are now widely accepted across much of the party, including by the Democrats competing against him for the chance to take on the president next year.
That impact, however, now appears to be spreading beyond the domestic front to foreign policy, including the party’s stance on the US-Israel relationship.
Last week, the Jewish senator defended Ilhan Omar, a Democrat congresswoman elected last November, against charges of antisemitism.
Ms Omar sparked anger last month by suggesting that US support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins”. The congresswoman apologised for that reference, which used a slang term for the $100 note, for appearing to evoke conspiracy theories about Jews buying political influence.
She caused further controversy two weeks ago by attacking “the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country” — referring to Israel.
Eliot Engel, the Democrat chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, labelled those comments “a vile antisemitic slur”.
But although the House of Representatives passed a resolution late last week condemning antisemitism, it made no specific mention of Ms Omar and was widened — diluted, critics claimed — to include references to other forms of racism and hate speech.
Mr Sanders’ support of Ms Omar — in which he said moves to censure her were “wrong” and aimed at “stifling debate” — was echoed by some fellow Democrats running for the White House: Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren suggested that “branding criticism of Israel as automatically antisemitic has a chilling effect on our public discourse” while California’s Kamala Harris said the “spotlight being put on Congresswoman Omar may put her at risk”.
Other presidential candidates — such as New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker, a member of the upper house representing New Jersey — took a harder line, but Mr Sanders’ sway with the liberal grassroots who will pick next year’s nominee is such that aspiring candidates may find it less politically
Elizabeth Warren costly to follow his lead. Recent polls suggest that the 77-year-old senator leads the polls in New Hampshire, the first state to hold a primary election next year, and is fast gaining ground in Iowa, another early contest, where former Vice President Joe Biden — who has yet to declare — is currently ahead. Mr Sanders was widely seen to have erred politically when he made a series of criticisms of Israel in the run-up to the New York primary in April 2016. Declaring himself “100 per cent proIsrael”, he nonetheless said its actions in the 2014 Gaza war were “disproportionate”, inflated the number of Palestinian deaths and attacked Benjamin Netanyahu. Mrs Clinton went on to comfortably win the state, home to the largest Jewish population in America. Buoyed by surveys showing rising sympathy among liberal Democrats for the Palestinians, Mr Sanders appears to have further toughened his stance towards Israel since 2016. He has floated Kirsten Gillibrand