As President Donald Trump continues to hurl anti-Semitic tropes and attacks against American Jews for not supporting him and his policies, the son of a Holocaust survivor is ripping him a new one for being a shill for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just when you thought Trump’s behavior couldn’t get any worse, he turns to spouting anti-Semitism to pander to his white nationalist base and declares himself the “second coming of God.”
Trump is questioning the loyalty of Jewish Democrats, something that Adolf Hitler often did in Germany leading up to the Holocaust. Terry Schwadron’s parents survived that horror, his mother by fleeing to China where she ended up being imprisoned, and his father by being freed via allied liberation of Hitler’s death camps.
Needless to say, Schwadron is qualified to speak out against Trump’s anti-Semitism, which he did in an op-ed this week.
“Hey Donald Trump, apparently you want to mix it up with me, son of a Holocaust survivor because I don’t agree that Israel—another sovereign nation—should be able to act as an oppressive occupier of Arab-owned land,” he began. “I’m not impressed with your offensive but limp, stupid statements about “Jewish Democrats” all because you think it plays well with your re-election campaign. You want a piece of me, bring it. You have done enough to piss me off.”
Schwadron blasted Trump for calling Jews disloyal for criticizing Israel and his racist policies. And then he made it clear that Trump is just revealing to the world that he is anti-Semite who can’t tell Jews and Israelis apart.
“It’s going to take a lot more of your empty arguments to hurt me, but let me be clear that my children and my grandchildren are forever going to know you as one who hates Jews and everything for which Jewish values stand,” he wrote. “You can’t even tell the difference between Jews and Israelis. The fact that no Israeli politician can currently pull a majority vote in the Knesset ought to tell you that even among Israelis there is no uniformity about the direction of Israeli-enforced policy.”
He spoke about his mother and father and how they couldn’t flee from the Holocaust to America because the United States had closed borders at the time.
“There was no escape possible to America because the borders were summarily shut down to them, even as the same nostalgic America was corralling Japanese-Americans into containment camps,” he wrote.
Americans tend to forget that Trump is repeating a part of our history that we should still be ashamed of. He wants closed borders. His attempt to prevent migrants from seeking asylum here and his detention camps, including one on the site of a former Japanese concentration camp, speaks volumes.
“Perhaps closing borders sounds a little too close to your own policies?” Schwadron continued. “It does for me, but then I’m disloyal – to something. To you, for sure. To capitalism that operates without empathy and fairness. To Netanyahu? Guilty as charged. To American values, I am loyal. To the Israeli government, particularly as aimed towards the right, nope. I care because relatives and a lot of Jews live there, understanding that there are fewer Jews there than in New York and Los Angeles.”
It’s true. If Trump should be pandering to anyone, it’s the Jews in these cities, not the Israelis.
He then concluded by calling out Trump’s behavior.
“How do you explain your own behavior?” he asked. “You’re the one disloyal to the ideas of America, the guy who loves America but hates Americans. If you want to shill for Netanyahu, go right ahead. But leave the Jewish tropes about dual loyalties home. If you can’t tell the difference between anti-Jew and anti-Israeli right-wing government, don’t say anything at all.”
We all know that Trump is not going to shut up, and that’s why we need more people like Schwadron to speak out.
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