On Wednesday night, former president Donald Trump characterized the rallies taking place around the US against Israel’s conduct in Gaza as “peanut” events compared to the 2017 white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in a woman’s death.
Protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville in August 2017, members of right-wing groups including neo-Nazis and white supremacists converged on the city. Some of those present chanted, “Jews will not replace us.” One of the revelers crashed his vehicle into the gathering, killing a 32-year-paralegal paralegal and wounding multiple others.
There have been no accounts of similar acts of violence during the nationwide pro-Palestinian protests, which have mainly taken place on university campuses. The safety of Jewish students has been a worry for public leaders, who have denounced antisemitic crimes that have taken place during the demonstrations.
Trump’s remarks are part of his ongoing effort to downplay the significance of the Charlottesville event. In 2017, his statement that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the protests garnered widespread condemnation. When Joe Biden announced his candidacy for president against Trump in 2020, he cited those remarks.
Joe Biden, the corrupt one, would continually claim that Charlottesville was the reason he ran for office. ‘Well, if that’s the case, he’s done a tremendously bad job,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday night, comparing the rioting and anti-Israel protests happening around the country right now to the ‘peanut’ that was Charlottesville. In addition to claiming that Biden hates Israel and Jews, Trump said in the post that Biden hates Palestinians much more.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told AWN, “President Trump is 100% correct.” in response to a question regarding Trump’s statement.
According to Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, “the American people are not going to be lectured to by the guy who called white supremacists very fine people after they chanted ‘Jews will not replace us’ and killed a woman.”
On Monday, Biden condemned antisemitic acts that have taken place during demonstrations on college campuses and stated that his administration is actively fighting against anti-Jewish bigotry.
At Columbia University in New York, Biden was asked about the incidents and responded, “I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that.” I also denounce anyone who fail to comprehend the situation of the Palestinians.
On Wednesday, hundreds were brought into custody at the University of Texas in Austin and almost a hundred at the University of Southern California as a result of pro-Palestinian demonstrations that had broken out on many large US campuses.
The demonstrations started last week at Columbia University, and the students and faculty there have stated that they would not leave unless the university meets many requests, including a commitment to withdraw from companies tied to Israel and a severing of connections with Israeli universities.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was urged by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who paid a campus visit on Wednesday, to step down if she is unable to restore order to the campus. His statements came as school protests escalated, prompting multiple congressional hearings and, in the case of two Ivy League universities, the resignations of their presidents (Claudine Gay of Harvard and Liz Magill of Penn).
