GOP congressman defends sharing link to antisemitic site
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) on Jan. 3, 2023. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh April 23, 2023
Rep. Paul Gosar, a far-right Arizona Republican with ties to white nationalists, on Sunday pushed back against criticism leveled at him for promoting antisemitic content in an official House email. He called the accusation “false and defamatory.”
In his weekly newsletter published April 10, Gosar shared a link to a neo-Nazi website praising him, but omitted the antisemitic reference from the original headline that reads, “Congressman: Jewish warmongers Nuland & Blinken ‘Are Dangerous Fools Who Can Get Us All Killed.’” Media Matters, a nonprofit group that monitors news outlets, reported about it after the Forward highlighted Gosar’s criticism of the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine in the war with Russia and his suggestion that the U.S. is aiding a Nazi regime.
”I have a solid record supporting Christians and Jews and other faiths,” Gosar wrote in this week’s newsletter published Sunday afternoon. “This cannot be rationally questioned.”
Gosar, who has associated himself with white nationalists and a pro-Nazi blogger, defended sharing the link to the neo-Nazi website because it shared his views on Ukraine and maintained that “it’s not possible to read every article on every website we link to.”
Paul Rockower, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix rejected Gosar’s “disingenuous claims of friendship” with the Jewish community in his state. “If your friends are white supremacists, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, you are not a friend of the Jewish community,” he said.
This post was updated.
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
