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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/zionist-white-supremacist-alliance-trumps-white-house">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/zionist-white-supremacist-alliance-trumps-white-house</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">The Zionist-white supremacist alliance in
Trump's White House</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field field-blog"></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2017-08-15T17:41:55+00:00">15 August 2017</span></span>
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<p>A much-discussed <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/politics/steve-bannon-trump-white-house.html">article</a>
in <em>The New York Times</em> about pressure on
President Donald Trump to fire his adviser <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/steve-bannon">Steve
Bannon</a> contains this intriguing sentence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mr. Bannon’s ability to hang on as Mr. Trump’s
in-house populist is in part because of his
connections to a handful of ultrarich political
patrons, including Sheldon G. Adelson, the
pro-Israel casino magnate who is based in Las Vegas.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As executive chairman of <em>Breitbart News</em>
before joining the Trump campaign, Bannon transformed
the right-wing outlet into what he <a
href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-alt-right-breitbart-news/">described</a>
as the “the platform for the alt-right” – the
collection of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and
racists who have been the renewed focus of outrage
since their violent rally in Charlottesville,
Virginia, on Saturday.</p>
<h2>Israel’s silence</h2>
<p>Bannon is widely viewed as the champion of the white
supremacists – some of whom were <a
href="https://www.vox.com/2017/8/12/16138352/this-weekends-charlottesville-rally-shows-how-close-good-old-boys-and-nazis-really-are">openly
parading with Nazi flags</a> – and the reason why
Trump did not explicitly condemn them immediately
after one of their number, allegedly James Alex
Fields, 20, rammed his car into counterdemonstrators
killing <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/heather-heyer-charlottesville-victim.html">32-year-old
Heather Heyer</a> and injuring more than a dozen
others.</p>
<p>Hence the renewed pressure on Trump to fire Bannon.
But if Bannon supports the white supremacist and
clearly anti-Semitic far-right, why does he enjoy the
backing of Adelson?</p>
<p>The Las Vegas billionaire, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/us-columnist-resigns-over-gag-order-pro-israel-mogul-sheldon-adelson">as
is well known</a>, is a major financier of the US
Republican Party and one of the biggest donors to
pro-Israel organizations in the United States. Adelson
has <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/billionaire-gingrich-backer-adelson-regrets-he-served-us-instead-israeli-military">said</a>
he regrets serving in the US army, instead of
Israel’s.</p>
<p>He is also a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu – and that’s where the answer can
be found.</p>
<p>Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have been <a
href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/3-days-later-israeli-leaders-still-conspicuously-silent-on-charlottesville/">conspicuously
silent</a> about Nazis rampaging in Charlottesville
– all the more strange since Israel is usually <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-moves-quickly-exploit-paris-attacks">quick</a>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-spin-doctors-move-exploit-orlando-massacre">to</a>
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-quick-exploit-manchester-bombing">exploit</a>
international events to its advantage. (After <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.807025">three
days of silence</a>, Netanyahu finally, on Tuesday,
<a
href="https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/897454226078658561">tweeted</a>
a general condemnation of “anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism
and racism” without specifically mentioning
Charlottesville.)</p>
<p>Why is the “Jewish state” apparently so reluctant to
speak out against Nazis?</p>
<h2>Israel’s anti-Semitic alliances</h2>
<p>While Israel purports to be the protector of Jews all
over the world, Zionists historically <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/201212249122912381.html">made
alliances</a> with the world’s most lethal
anti-Semites. Zionists and anti-Semites, after all,
shared the analysis that Jews do not belong in Europe,
so why not cooperate to transport them somewhere else
– Palestine.</p>
<p>This odious alliance continues in updated form, as
journalist Max Blumenthal observed:</p>
<div id="file-50176" class="file file-document
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">But this is the essence of
Zionism and why it's been received so amenably
by gentile fascists who also want Jews out <a
href="https://t.co/HxJWqyia51">https://t.co/HxJWqyia51</a></p>
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) <a
href="https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/896976764597043200">August
14, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>A cornerstone of Israel’s policy today is to cement
ties with other ultra-nationalist, racist and
Islamophobic forces around the world – even if they
are also anti-Semitic.</p>
<p>A striking example is Netanyahu’s <a
href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/benjamin-netanyahu-hungary-state-visit-viktor-orban-anti-semitism-controversy-far-right-anti-a7846346.html">own
embrace</a> of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orban, despite the latter’s <a
href="http://www.jta.org/2017/06/26/news-opinion/world/hungarian-jews-slam-prime-ministers-praises-for-hitler-ally-horthy">recent
praise</a> for Viktor Horthy, the wartime ally of
Hitler who oversaw the murder of 500,000 Holocaust
victims.</p>
<p>Israel’s interests took precedence over the safety
concerns of Hungarian Jews, as Netanyahu <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.800437">ordered
his foreign ministry</a> to tamp down criticism of
Orban’s anti-Semitic dog whistles.</p>
<p>Notably, Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi ideologue who
wants to create an Aryan homeland in North America,
has called his mission a “<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/trump-bringing-white-zionism-white-house">sort
of white Zionism</a>.” Spencer <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/email-2007-ties-trump-adviser-stephen-miller-neo-nazi-richard-spencer">has
ties</a> to another senior White House adviser,
Stephen Miller.</p>
<p>A similar ideological alliance prevails inside the
White House. And Israel has guarded it: Ron Dermer,
the Israeli ambassador in Washington, <a
href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/306658-israeli-ambassador-defends-bannon">publicly
defended Bannon</a> in the days following last
November’s election, after American Jewish groups
strongly criticized Bannon’s appointment to a top
position.</p>
<h2>Ideology and convenience</h2>
<p>But the Adelson-Bannon partnership is also one of
convenience. The Adelson-backed Zionist Organization
of America is <a
href="https://www.poynter.org/2017/how-sheldon-adelson-uses-the-media-to-punish-those-he-dislikes/469983/">waging
a campaign</a> against Trump’s National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster, which aims to portray the army
general as <a
href="http://zoa.org/2017/08/10371905-zoa-nscs-mcmaster-reassign-him-to-area-not-dealing-with-israel-or-iran/">“hostile
to Israel.”</a></p>
<p>McMaster also happens to be one of Bannon’s <a
href="https://www.salon.com/2017/08/14/h-r-mcmaster-and-steve-bannon-are-in-the-middle-of-a-serious-white-house-feud/">key
opponents</a> inside the White House.</p>
<p>Establishment Israel lobby figures, such as the Obama
administration’s ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro,
have leapt to McMaster’s defense:</p>
<div id="file-50181" class="file file-document
file-text-oembed oembed-rich oembed-default
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<div class="oembed-content">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Two leading Israeli
security figures debunk the absurd and offensive
canard that McMaster is unfriendly to Israel.<a
href="https://t.co/Kp2GnBvkaL">https://t.co/Kp2GnBvkaL</a></p>
— Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) <a
href="https://twitter.com/DanielBShapiro/status/897058432813076480">August
14, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<h2>Choose your war</h2>
<p>There are substantive issue at stake. Part of
Bannon’s ultra-nationalist “America First” agenda is
opposing some US military interventions, <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/world/asia/us-troops-afghanistan-trump.html">particularly</a>
a renewed “surge” in Afghanistan that is supported by
McMaster and US defense secretary James Mattis.</p>
<p>That is not Adelson’s – or Netanyahu’s interest –
however. Bannon and other ultra-right figures
including White House advisor Sebastian Gorka – have
been key opponents of the international deal with Iran
over its nuclear energy program. Blocking or
undermining the Iran deal has been <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/obama-buries-gaza-under-iran-nuclear-deal">Netanyahu’s
preoccupation for years</a>.</p>
<p>Bannon and Gorka <a
href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/21/trump-assigns-white-house-team-to-target-iran-nuclear-deal-sidelining-state-department/">furiously
opposed</a> the State Department’s recent
certification that Iran is in compliance with the
terms of the agreement.</p>
<p>The Zionist Organization of America’s <a
href="http://zoa.org/2017/08/10371905-zoa-nscs-mcmaster-reassign-him-to-area-not-dealing-with-israel-or-iran/">key
allegation</a> against McMaster is that he is too
sympathetic towards Iran.</p>
<p>Reporting by <em>The Forward</em> <a
href="http://forward.com/news/national/366181/exclusive-nazi-allied-group-claims-top-trump-aide-sebastian-gorka-as-sworn/">revealed</a>
that Gorka is a member of a Hungarian far-right group
that was controlled by the Nazis during the war, and
has <a
href="http://forward.com/news/national/367937/exclusive-controversial-trump-aide-sebastian-gorka-backed-violent-anti-semi/">given
backing</a> to an anti-Semitic militia.</p>
<p>For those who support justice and oppose war and
racism, there is no “side” to choose in this battle.
On one side, you have the Bannon-Adelson faction
pushing extreme Zionism, anti-Semitism, white
supremacy and possible war with Iran. On the other,
you have have the McMaster faction, backed by the DC
establishment, which wants to perpetuate America’s
existing imperial wars, starting with escalation in
Afghanistan.</p>
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