THE FORWARD – Earlier this week, Jews throughout the world gathered around dining room tables with family and friends to celebrate Passover. At the Seder meal, participants are made to feel they were slaves in Egypt by recalling one of humanity’s fundamental stories about freedom from oppression. The ancient Exodus story serves to remind us of the ongoing responsibility, passed down through generations, to take a stand against injustice.
How ironic then, that on the very day that the Jewish community was gathering to retell a 3,000-year-old story of oppression at Seders, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer negated an 80-year-old history of oppression.
At a press briefing on the eve of Passover, he contended that Hitler, unlike Syria’s Assad, never used chemical weapons against his own people, failing to recognize that the Nazis deployed a chemical weapon – Zyklon B gas – to carry out the systematic slaughter of millions in gas chambers and that the victims included 160,000-180,000 German Jews.
Adding insult to injury, Spicer tried walking back his comments the next day with a hackneyed acknowledgement that Hitler did target victims with chemical weapons at “Holocaust centers.”
I served as President Obama’s liaison to the American Jewish community for close to three years and experienced firsthand the significance attached to every word emanating from the White House. In the case of Trump’s White House, Spicer’s comments were just the latest in a succession of affronts that shine a spotlight on the Trump White House’s repeated failure to take an unambiguous stand against anti-Semitism and its tone-deafness to the growing concerns of American Jews during increasingly intolerant times.
First was the appointment of Steve Bannon, who became Counselor to the President despite his role as the pater familias of the alt-Right through his leadership of Breitbart News, which the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called the “leading source for the extreme views of a vocal minority who peddle bigotry and promote hate.”
The alt-Right minions stirred up by Bannon and Breitbart are unabashed in fueling a cesspool of online anti-Semitic attacks – just ask any number of Jewish journalists about the online comments or Tweets they have received. Until late February, Trump declined repeated invitations to condemn such attacks.
Second was the failure to mention the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Trump’s January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Statement. When I worked at the White House, I drafted these statements, and I had to ensure that they avoided landmines like, say, failing to mention that 6 million Jews were murdered, in a statement about Holocaust remembrance.
Even more unbelievable than this omission — which could have been chalked up to a White House that didn’t have its act together — was the White House’s doubling down to defend it, arguing that it was unnecessary. Unnecessary? Hitler sought to exterminate European Jewry, and the statement should have listed Jews along with the Holocaust’s other victims, just as President Obama’s statements did. Ultimately, the omission of Jewish victims from the statement was a shocking wink and nod to those on the “alt-Right” who either pay lip service to, or fail to condemn, Holocaust denial.
Third was the inadequacy of President Trump’s response to a surge in anti-Semitism, including vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and other community spaces. His stubborn unwillingness to condemn it was on full display at Trump’s rambling February 16 press conference, when he upbraided a reporter from a haredi publication who attempted to ask a reasonable question about the uptick in anti-Semitism. Before the reporter could even finish, Trump ordered him to “sit down,” accusing him of asking an unfair question and then boasted: “So here’s the story folks. No. 1, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”
Really? Then why did it take the President so long to address the ugly rise in anti-Semitism. It wasn’t until February 21 that he read a prepared statement condemning anti-Semitic threats to the Jewish community following a tour of the Museum of African-American History. And why did Trump cryptically insinuate something else a few days later when he said, at a White House meeting of state attorneys general, that the vandalism and threats against Jewish community institutions might not be anti-Semitism, “but the reverse”? The head of his Office of Public Liaison then supported this false flag with a Tweet suggesting that some of the threats might in fact be coming from Democrats.
That brings us to this week’s conflagration, which Spicer ignited as Passover began. With his fumbled effort to walk back these comments by referring to “Holocaust centers,” Spicer only dug himself into a deeper hole. The backlash was overwhelming everywhere except at the White House, where President Trump has remained silent and taken no remedial steps, despite being called upon repeatedly to relieve his ignorant-at-best press secretary of his duties as the president’s chief spokesperson. At the very least, Trump should require Spicer take a day off so that he can take a short walk to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for a long visit.
Spicer then sought to rehabilitate himself in the Jewish community by calling Sheldon Adelson, the partisan Republican billionaire and casino magnate who underwrites the Republican Jewish Coalition and an array of right-wing causes, donated millions to support Trump’s election, and is far to the right of the majority of American Jews. Spicer did not reach out to the ADL or any of the major Jewish organizations that play a leadership role in combating Anti-Semitism in America. What should have been a genuine gesture of contrition became a transparent act of tokenism that underscored just how out of touch this White House is with the Jewish community.
Trump’s White House may hold the record for the most high-profile affronts to the Jewish community in the first 100 days. I cannot help but compare this Passover to those celebrated at the White House during the Obama years. During each of his eight years in office, President Obama issued a statement that captured the spirit, meaning and relevance of the Passover story. He and First Lady Michelle Obama, joined by Jewish and non-Jewish staffers, recalled the Exodus story at eight White House Seders. This year, Passover at the White House was dominated by Spicer’s comments, along with a “happy Passover” Tweet by President Trump and a White House Seder that no one from the First Family bothered to attend.
The words and actions emanating from the Trump White House demonstrate that the President and his staff, on matters of central concern to the Jewish community, are the ones wandering in the desert 3,000 years after the Exodus.
Even better, the POTUS should have hosted a Good Friday dinner or a Holy Resurrection dinner.
it is past time for the 110th! If jews do not raise your anger to the point of knowing the 110th is the only way to peace because your anger has already forced you to research who has been responsible for ALL our wars and has shown you the reality behind such admittances as “if my son’s did not want wars there would be none” you should admit your a goyim, a chattel. Continue funding your enemy. Jews have you by your belief system! Not by law! Your belief system is jewish for non jews!
If you know the above, are familiar with the 109 expulsions and the likes of the quote why are you using jews money and paying t.h.e.m. taxes? Because chattel-hood is easy? Have you really researched? For instance has your research into taxation brought you here, http://www.losthorizons.com? Why not?
The main aspect of your jew imposed belief system is using blind fear to judge weather rational acts are rational! Use knowledge instead! http://www.losthorizons.com
Concentrate on this one area of your lives that jews own and control you with. When you discover the depth of the income tax lie shown at http://www.losthorizons.com you will begin to see the depth of lies you have taken as your own “sense” and who has inculcated you with these lies.
When will people stand up & tell the Truth about the Hoax? The mass gassing of millions of jews should be denied every time the subject comes up! People need to hear it every day. I deny the Holohoax at every opportunity, loud & clear. And fearlessly, I might add. The world is sick & tired of the BIG LIE. The “Holocaust” is patently preposterous!
More jews were gassed than soldiers KIA of the USA (450,000), Britain (400,000), Germany (3,000,000) and Japan (2,000,000) in WW2??? LOL!!!
What TOTAL BS!
How many lies in this jew article? They each need to be stomped into dust. I hate reading this crap from jew sources!
Again, lack of scientific evidence, but the Joos own the USA media…..so all the men in this page are Antisemitic ! Holocaust was truly a HoloCost !! or the Real Holocaust’s in Dresden, or Nagasaki or Hiroshima or the Bengal Indians or Ukraine !!! Yet Still Never allowed a public venue !!!
WHY ARE PEOPLE AFRAID OF THE FACTS ABOUT THE JEWS? – “The Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. They have now gained control of the most powerful countries … this tiny community heave become a world power.” -Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamed
“There is only one power which really counts: The power of political pressure. We Jews are the most powerful people on earth, because we have this power, and we know how to apply it” -Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Jewish Daily Bulletin, July 27, 1935
The biggest banks including the Federal Reserve enslaving the world to debt-based currencies are all run by Zionist Jews: Rothschild’s of London and Berlin, Lazard Brothers of Paris, Israel Moses Seaf of Italy, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. of Germany and New York, Warburg & Co. of Germany, Lehman Brothers of New York, Goldman Sachs of New York, Rockefeller Brothers of New York, and many more. The biggest and most influential lobby in America is none other than AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the majority of Congress has long been bought out by Israeli interests.
Former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney exposed and blamed the American pro-Israeli lobby including AIPAC, ADL, AJC, and ZOA for ruining her political career. In 2009 she told an interviewer that “more than 99% of Congress works for Pro Zionist Israeli interests.” Because of her pro-Palestinian stance McKinney was ousted from Congress by the influence of Jewish lobbies funding and supporting her political opponents.
Another former US congressman, Jim Trafficant was also targeted and imprisoned on trumped-up corruption charges when he openly opposed the Israelis. After serving 7 years in prison he came out in a television interview saying, “Israel has a powerful stranglehold on the American government. They control both members of the House and the Senate. They have us involved in wars in which we have little or no interest. Our children are coming back in body bags. Our nation is bankrupt over these wars. And if you open your mouth, you get targeted. And if they don’t beat you at the poll, they’ll put you in prison … They’re controlling much of our foreign policy. They’re influencing much of our domestic policy. Wolfowitz as undersecretary of defense manipulated President Bush number two back into Iraq. They’ve pushed definitely to try to get Bush before he left to move into Iran. We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody’s afraid to say it. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress.”
“I’ve never seen a President – I don’t care who he is – stand up to them (the Israelis). It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.” -Former Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer.
L.A. Times Jewish reporter Joel Stein even wrote an article called “How Jewish is Hollywood?” where he bragged that Jews control Hollywood, the news media, politics and finance: “Jews totally run Hollywood. As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes we control Hollywood … I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.”
“A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians” -British MP Tom Dalyell
“The Jewish people as a whole will become its own Messiah. It will attain world dominion by the dissolution of other races, by the abolition of frontiers, the annihilation of monarchy and by the establishment of a world republic in which the Jews will everywhere exercise the privilege of citizenship. In this New World Order the children of Israel will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition. The Governments of the different peoples forming the world republic will fall without difficulty into the hands of the Jews. It will then be possible for the Jewish rulers to abolish private property and everywhere to make use of the resources of the state. Thus will the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, in which is said that when the Messianic time is come, the Jews will have all the property of the whole world in their hands.” -Baruch Levy, 1879.
“The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was the work of Jewish planning and Jewish dissatisfaction. Our Plan is to have a New World Order. What worked so wonderfully in Russia, is going to become Reality for the whole world.” -The American Hebrew Magazine, 1920