Mondoweiss

August 20, 2017 Dear stan, The riots in Charlottesville last weekend and President Trump’s inane and inept response mark perhaps the nadir of a months-old presidency that has not lacked in low points. This time the president has sided with violent white supremacists, some of whom identify as Nazis. Interestingly, the Israeli prime minister, who never misses an opportunity to call out anti-Semitism whether real or imagined, remained silent for days after Trump’s comments. But his son didn’t, and his contribution to the conversation was to say that the anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter movements were the real threat. If you’ve been following Palestine/Israel it’s not hard to see why the Israeli right can’t bring itself to condemn right-wing racism. While some Israeli politicians to the left of Netanyahu and his crew have condemned the fascists at Charlottesville, they still need to reconcile that position with the institutional racism they preside over at home. And conversely, some of the liberal media elite of this country, who are (rightly) leading the charge against white nationalist violence, happen to be vociferous cheerleaders, or worse, for the same sort of violence in Palestine. The paradox is glaring, and it is not sustainable.  Thanks for reading, Scott Roth Publisher, Mondoweiss