Muslim Group Calls For Gorka’s Firing After Hungarian-Nazi Ties Revealed

Image by Getty Images

By Nathan Guttman March 16, 2017

America’s largest Muslim organization is calling on President Trump to fire his top adviser, Sebastian Gorka, following the Forward’s report about his membership in a Nazi-allied Hungarian organization.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called in a statement “on all Americans who oppose anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all other forms of bigotry to contact the White House to urge the president to fire Gorka.” The group has also criticized Gorka in the past for what it described as his Islamophobic views.

Several other groups also spoke out against Gorka following the new information that was revealed about his association in Hungary with the Vitézi Rend organization.

Bend the Arc Jewish Action, a progressive group, described the news about Gorka as “extremely disturbing” and called on him to “immediately come clean and disclose any ties to this radical, Nazi-allied organization.” The group’s CEO Stosh Cotler said that if Gorka is indeed a member of the organization, he must resign from the administration or be removed from his post. “Actions speak louder than words however, and the world is watching,” Cotler said. “We call on all political leaders — on both sides of the aisle — to demand a swift response from Gorka on these allegations.”

The National Jewish Democratic Council called on Trump to fire Gorka and said it seems that the “extreme vetting” measures the president is suggesting for immigrants were not applied on Gorka’s case. “It is outrageous for someone who has sworn loyalty to another country, is a member of a racist and anti-Semitic group, and very possibly lied in his immigration interview, to serve in the White House,” the group said in its statement.

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected]

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO