Israeli Trump Backer Suggests ‘Leftists’ Set Up Deadly Charlottesville Car-Ramming
Image by Getty Images
By Dave Goldiner August 14, 2017
President Trump’s top supporter in Israel blamed “leftist thugs” for the violence in Charlottesville and defended the president for failing to directly condemn white supremacists.
Marc Zell, head of Republicans Abroad in Israel, also called Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee a “great man” — and said he suspects liberal counter demonstrators were somehow behind the car-ramming attack that killed one person and injured many others.
“I will not be surprised if they find that the incident was deliberately provoked by the left,” Zell told Haaretz.
Zell strongly took issue wiht the widespread criticism of Trump for fanning the flames of hatred with divisive rhetoric and for his failure to unequivocally condemn white nationalist violence, Trump’s supporters present a diametrically different point of view.
“Trying to blame the President for these events is ridiculous,” said Marc Zell, head of Republicans Abroad in Israel. “Even before the events escalated, he called for calm and restraint on all sides.”
Noting that the demonstration was a response to the city’s plan to remove a statue of Lee, Zell said it was wrong to whitewash history.
“Both the North and the South had terrible sides to them, but you can’t remove a statue because it offends some people,” he said. “That’s left-wing violence.”
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
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
