United States President-elect Donald Trump is under fire from Jewish groups who sought an apology from him for his remark comparing reports about him to Nazi-era propaganda, saying his statement was “erroneous, offensive and denigrating” to Holocaust survivors.
The Anti-Defamation League and the Anne Frank Centre for Mutual Respect condemned Mr. Trump for what they characterised as trivialising one of the singular horrors of the 20th century to score a political point, The New York Times reported.
‘Has he no shame?’
“Has he no sense of shame?” Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Centre for Mutual Respect, said.
The Centre is the American chapter of an international group that fights prejudice to honour the legacy of Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who perished in the Holocaust in 1945.
‘Either callous or ignorant’
“The President-elect has shown the grossest possible insensitivity to survivors of the Holocaust before he even takes office,” Mr. Goldstein was quoted as saying by the paper. “Either he is completely callous in attacking U.S. intelligence, or he is so ignorant of history that you would never want this man to be president.”
Jonathan A Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said that Mr. Trump’s analogy was “not only an inappropriate comparison on the merits, but it also coarsens our discourse.”
Asserting that no one should cavalierly draw analogies to Nazi Germany, Mr. Greenblatt said it would be helpful for Mr. Trump to explain his intentions or apologise for the remark.
After dossier reports
Mr. Trump made the offending remark on his Twitter account in response to media reports that Russia has a dossier with compromising personal and financial information about him.
“Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?” he tweeted on Wednesday.
The American Jewish Committee tweeted back: “We regret @realDonaldTrump’s use of Nazi Germany regarding the media — an inappropriate comparison that diminishes the horrors of that time.”
Not the first such time
This is not the first time Mr. Trump has gotten into trouble with Jewish groups while making a political point.
Last July, during the presidential campaign, he was criticised for posting a tweet with a photo of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton next to an image of the Star of David and a background of $100 bills. The text read, ‘Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!’
