Stephen K. Bannon: Claims of Anti-Semitism, Racism 'Just Nonsense'

Stephen K. Bannon, who served as Executive Chairman at Breitbart News before becoming Donald Trump’s campaign CEO and now the President-elect’s White House chief strategist and senior counsel, responded to recent media attacks alleging that he is anti-Semitic during an in-depth interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Bannon said that charges of racism against him and Breitbart News are “just nonsense.”

“Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America. I have Breitbart Jerusalem, which I have Aaron Klein run with about 10 reporters there. We’ve been leaders in stopping this BDS movement,” Bannon explained to the Wall Street Journal, referencing boycott, divestment and sanctions. “In the United States; we’re a leader in the reporting of young Jewish students being harassed on American campuses; we’ve been a leader on reporting on the terrible plight of the Jews in Europe.”

Bannon also mentioned that he works with many Jewish people, referencing Breitbart California editor and writer Joel Pollak, who is Jewish and has defended Bannon, adding, “these claims of anti-Semitism just aren’t serious. It’s a joke.”

He went on to blame the false claim of anti-Semitism on the media, which has repeatedly criticized a Breitbart headline reading: “Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew.”

Writer David Horowitz, who is also Jewish and an intellectual leader of the conservative movement, used the headline and argued in the article that Bill Kristol’s attempt to split the Republican vote over Donald Trump was a “betrayal” of the Jewish people and Israel.

But half of world Jewry now lives in Israel, and the enemies whom Obama and Hillary have empowered — Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, ISIS, and Hamas — have openly sworn to exterminate the Jews. I am also an American (and an American first), whose country is threatened with destruction by the same enemies. To weaken the only party that stands between the Jews and their annihilation, and between America and the forces intent on destroying her, is a political miscalculation so great and a betrayal so profound as to not be easily forgiven.

Horowitz has said he has “no apologies” for the headline: “In mounting a third-party run which would split the Republican vote and elect Hillary, Bill Kristol seems to be forgetting that the Iranians and their Jew-hating allies are openly preparing a second Holocaust in the Middle East.”