Left wing MKs denounce Trump for ‘disloyalty’ comments

Democratic Union MK Tamar Zandberg and Joint List MK Ofer Cassif were the first MKs to condemn US President Donald Trump’s comments on Tuesday that Jews who vote for the Democratic Party show “great disloyalty.”

Both MKs accused Trump of using a classic antisemitic stereotype and both pointed out that the prime minister of the Jewish state should denounce such comments.

“Casting doubt on the loyalties of minorities has been directed against the Jewish people for generations, and today unites the anti-liberal alliance of Netanyahu, Trump, and other leaders,” said Zandberg.

“Netanyahu should have been the first to demand an apology, on the other hand he was the first to say that the left has forgotten to be Jewish.”

Jabbing Netanyahu, who once warned that Arab Israeli citizens were “flocking to the voting booths in droves,” Zandberg sarcastically proposed that the Israeli prime minister suggest to Trump that he warn Americans that “the Jews are flocking to the voting ballots.”

Cassif asserted that since Trump had cast aspersions on the loyalty of Jews voting for the Democratic Party, for whom the large majority of Jewish Americans vote for, the US president was essentially accusing “the majority of Jewish Americans” of being disloyal.

“In a normal world, a president who spoke like that about the Jews of his country would receive severe condemnation from the prime minister of Israel, but not in the case of Netanyahu,” said Caassif.

“While Trump is inciting antisemitism, when his supporters are implementing the racist manual of their leader, Netanyahu is silent,” said Cassif, whose hard left Hadash party is a constituent of the Joint List of Arab parties.