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New York, NY, August 15, 2017 … Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), released the following statement on President Trump’s remarks today:
We have a history in this country of presidents standing up to bigotry and hate. Today, for the second time in four days, President Trump did the opposite.
President Trump went beyond the pale today in equating racist white supremacists in Charlottesville with counter protesters who were there to stand up against hate. Let us not forget. The entire Unite the Right rally was built on racial and conspiratorial anti-Semitism. Marchers threw Nazi salutes as they waved swastika flags, proudly wore swastika pins and shirts, and shouted ‘sieg heil!’ A sign carried by rally-goers warned that the ‘Jewish media is going down;’ another declared that ‘Jews are Satan’s children.’ A white supremacist told a reporter that ‘the f****** Jew-lovers are gassing us,’ and another one called a Jewish counter-protestor a kike. ‘Blood and soil,’ which the white supremacists chanted several times, is the translation of the Nazi slogan, ‘Blut und Boden.’ And at least once, white supremacists changed their refrain, ‘You will not replace us’ to ‘Jews will not replace us.’
There is no rationalizing white supremacy and no room for this vile bigotry. It is un-American and it needs to be condemned without hesitation. President Trump has had a pattern of equivocating on prejudice.
What we saw Saturday was hate, plain and simple. As an American, as a Jew and as the head of an organization founded to combat anti-Semitism and hate, I am profoundly disturbed. The American people deserve better.