Former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday downplayed violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, while describing a recent wave of noisy but mostly peaceful pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses as riots “.
A woman was killed and nearly 40 people were injured when an avowed neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during violent clashes in Charlottesville. Earlier, hundreds of white supremacists marched through the city, brandishing torches and chanting: “The Jews will not replace us.”
The current campus protests, while resulting in dozens of arrests, have not resulted in any significant violence.
In a post on his social media site, peppered with random capital letters, Mr. Trump said: “Joe Biden constantly said he ran because of Charlottesville,” he wrote of the election in 2020. “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, RIGHT NOW. “
Mr. Trump also reiterated his attack on President Biden, saying he “HATES Israel and the Jewish people,” while adding “the problem is he HATES the Palestinians even more, and he just doesn’t know what TO DO !? !?”
Representatives for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Biden campaign also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Trump – who also presided over the civil unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in May 2020 – sought to downplay a chapter of his presidency that sparked widespread outrage and criticism.
In the aftermath of Charlottesville, Mr. Trump repeatedly drew a moral equivalence between white supremacists — who waved swastikas, Confederate flags and “Trump/Pence” signs — and peaceful counterprotesters, saying he there were “very good people on both sides”.
Underpinning the Charlottesville rally of neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and white supremacists was a racist conspiracy theory, called the Great Replacement Theory, according to which elites, sometimes manipulated by Jews, seek to “replace” and to disempower white Americans. The theory’s growing prominence in far-right circles has sparked racist terrorist attacks around the world, including several mass shootings in the United States.
Mr. Biden has faced protests and opposition to his presidential campaign in recent months from Americans sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians and angry at the United States for arming Israel in the fighting in Gaza. Mr. Trump’s social media post on Wednesday sought to portray many of those protesters as a rampaging mob, while also seeking to stoke protesters’ anger by claiming that Mr. Biden hates the Palestinians.
Mr. Trump has also repeatedly insulted Jews who vote for Democrats and Mr. Biden, saying they hate their religion and Israel.
Some of the protests on campus included hate speech and expressions of support for Hamas, the Gaza militant group that carried out attacks on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people. In response to these Hamas attacks, Israel waged war on Gaza, killing more than 34,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. This week, Mr. Biden condemned protests that he said were veering toward anti-Semitism, but he also expressed sympathy for the Palestinians.
“I condemn the anti-Semitic protests,” Mr. Biden told reporters on Monday. “I also condemn those who do not understand what is happening with the Palestinians.”
News Source : www.nytimes.com
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