The former White House aide with ties to an anti-Semitic organization says ‘liberal elements of the American Jewish population have basically become anti-Israeli.’
By Eli Clifton
Recently-departed White House aide Sebastian Gorka never seemed to hold his tongue during his tenure as an adviser to President Donald Trump. He called criticism of the White House’s omission of Jewish victims of the Holocaust in a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement “asinine” and regularly attacked television anchors for their ratings, deriding them as “fake news.”
But Gorka, who left the White House under unclear circumstances last Friday, was apparently holding back his vitriol for left-wing Jews, who he denounced as “doing so much to betray our great friendship with Jerusalem,” in a radio interview on Tuesday.
Gorka, speaking to right-wing radio host Michael Savage, said the following:
Some great Jewish Americans came to my defense […] and even numerous rabbis from New York and they taught me and they educated me. They told me that this is one of the saddest phenomena of American politics now that liberal, the liberal elements of the American Jewish population has basically become anti-Israeli. It’s the greatest saddest paradox. You know there are key people such as at The Forward who are pro-BDS, who are pro-Iran deal. It’s this very tragic phenomena that the people who should be supporting Israel and U.S.-Israel relations the most have really done so much, done so much, to betray our great friendship with Jerusalem.
Listen to the conversation here (from 9:30):
Gorka’s decision to lash out at “liberal” Jews and The Forward was driven by the publication’s coverage of his ties to a Nazi-affiliated group (as characterized by the U.S. State Department), Vitezi Rend, in Hungary and his apparent endorsement of a racist and anti-Semitic Hungarian militia in a 2007 television interview.
LobeLog first published photos of Gorka wearing a medal with the Vitezi Rend symbol to Trump’s inauguration and posed questions about his ties to the group.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote to the Trump administration earlier this month, asking if Gorka was under criminal investigation for failing to disclose his ties to Vitezi Rend in his application for U.S. citizenship.
“Sebastian Gorka should never have been an advisor to POTUS. He should still be investigated for concealing neo-Nazi ties,” Durbin tweeted on Monday.
Eli Clifton reports on money in politics and U.S. foreign policy. Eli previously reported for the American Independent New Network, ThinkProgress, and Inter Press Service. This article is reprinted, with permission, from Lobelog.com.
