Calling Zionists ‘Cockroaches’ Isn’t Racist, Politician Claims

Image by Facebook

By Sam Kestenbaum November 6, 2017

A Georgia city council candidate defended himself against allegations of anti-Semitism last week, saying that his tweets describing Zionists as “cockroaches” and calls for Jews to be removed from the White House do not make him racist.

“I’m absolutely not racist in the very least,” Joe Briggs told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Briggs, a 59-year-old engineer who is running for a city council post in a suburb of Atlanta, has been tweeting about Jews and Israel over the last year. The posts, which came to light in the lead up to Tuesday’s election, are critical of Israel’s government and its role in American politics, but also criticize Jews more broadly. Briggs once wrote: “zionists in Israel far worse than anything described in Mein Kampf. Get over it.”

“Get the Jews out of the White House and out of POTUS’ ear,” Briggs wrote in a tweet from September about Iran.

“At least the Nazis assimilated and contributed to US society,” Briggs also tweeted.

A few days later, he wrote, “The problem is that Jews don’t care about racism — because they are racist. They only care about racism directed towards them. Square that.”

Dov Wilker, the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Atlanta office, called Briggs’ comments “severely offensive and insulting.”

“Especially any comment about Jews as bugs or cockroaches is an indication, it’s classic anti-Zionist trope,” Wilker told the newspaper.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO