Trump noted in an evening social media post that President Biden cited the violent events in Charlottesville as a major motivation for running for president against Trump. “Well, if that’s the case, he’s done a truly terrible job because Charlottesville is like ‘peanut’ compared to the anti-Israel riots and protests happening all over our country, NOW,” Trump wrote on his social media site. Social truth.
Politicians from both parties have recently sounded the alarm over incidents of anti-Semitism amid mass protests criticizing Israel. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) visited Columbia University on Wednesday as protests on college campuses spread and led to arrests.
But Trump’s comments provide a remarkable setting for the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which even some allies considered a low point of his presidency. White supremacists had gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in August 2017; the event featured former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke as speaker.
It turned deadly when a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens.
Police said they were investigating some attacks potentially motivated by tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza-based militant group that launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7. But no deaths have been reported in connection with the anti-Israel protests in 2017. the United States.
Trump, as president, said at the Charlottesville rally that while the rally featured “very bad people…there were also people who were very good people, on both sides.” He reiterated his position later, saying both parties were responsible for the violence – and drawing rare rebukes from fellow Republicans and Democrats.
In his Truth Social article published Wednesday, Trump roundly criticized Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Gaza – suggesting that Biden hates Israel, Jews and Palestinians and “just doesn’t know what to do.” Trump has already responded by saying that any Jewish American who votes for Democrats “hates their religion” and hates Israel.
washingtonpost
