GOP congressman defends sharing link to antisemitic site

Rep. Paul Gosar from Arizona said his ‘solid record’ supporting Jews cannot be questioned

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.

Jacob Kornbluh is the Forward’s senior political reporter. Follow him on Twitter @jacobkornbluh or email [email protected].

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