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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Sam Wolfson

Antisemites supporting Israel is weird. Jewish support of them is even weirder

In sunset silhouette, two men stand in an emptying plaza, with the sun lighting a blue-on-white Israeli flag one of them is holding.
Menachem Roetter of Detroit, left, at the March for Israel rally on 14 November in Washington DC. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Perhaps the most bizarre spectacle of the past month has been watching some of the world’s most wretched antisemites lining up to give their unalloyed support to Israel. Even more jarring has been their embrace by those who are supposed to advocate for Jewish safety.

These people include the radical US pastor John Hagee, who previously claimed that Adolf Hitler had been born from a lineage of “accursed, genocidally murderous half-breed Jews” and sent by God to help the Jews reach the promised land. (He apologized in 2008 for some of his remarks.) He was invited to speak last Tuesday to an audience of thousands at the March for Israel in Washington, organised by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, to help “condemn the rising trend of antisemitic violence”.

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