Earlier this month, at the Jerusalem Post’s annual conference in New York, columnist Caroline Glick defended presidential adviser Sebastian Gorka from defamation and shone a spotlight on the hypocrisy of the left.
Gorka, a former Breitbart editor, has been targeted by false allegations of antisemitism by left-wing critics.
Glick delivered the conference’s final address, and was met with roaring applause several times during her talk.
“We have to challenge and confront and oppose our enemies here in the United States and throughout the world,” Glick said, adding, “and I fear that today, in the Jewish community in the United States, there is an alarming unwillingness to do both of those things.”
Glick went through a history of “Jews by birth playing very destructive roles for the Jewish community. We saw it throughout the Middle Ages, certainly in Europe,” and said, “[T]oday we have a situation in the Democratic Party where, to the side of extraordinary friends of the Jewish people like Congresswoman Grace Meng, we have a rising star by the name of Linda Sarsour.”
Sarsour has been criticized for her support of Sharia law; her forward role in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against the State of Israel; stating “nothing is creepier than Zionism”; and expressing that she wishes anti-Islamist writers Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali could have their “vaginas taken away” for their opposition to Sharia law.
“Linda Sarsour was extolled by president Obama as a change maker, I think he called her,” Glick said. She also noted that Sarsour was listed as one of Time magazine’s most influential people last year and headed the women’s march against President Donald Trump the day after he was sworn into office. “And not to put too fine a point on it, but she’s an antisemite.”
Sarsour has also been tapped to deliver CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health’s commencement speech June 1 — a move that has been heavily criticized by many on the left and right.
Glick criticized the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Community (AJC) for being “silent” on the issue. She also praised the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and its president, Mort Klein, for raising “holy hell” over this “very disturbing” issue.
“This is something that simply should be fought,” Glick said. “Because if [Sarsour is] allowed to rise without a massive outcry from the Jewish community about the direction that things are going in the Democratic Party, we can’t be surprised that she and others like her will continue to be empowered in that party.”
Glick then transitioned to Dr. Gorka.
“And on the other hand, we have Dr. Gorka who, aside from the fact that I’m honored and privileged to number him among my personal friends, is a true friend of the Jewish community in the United States and a true friend of Israel in the White House:”
He’s an advocate for a strong US-Israel alliance in the halls of power where he sits. Throughout his career, he has been an outspoken support of Israel and defender of Israel against all takers. And yet, he right now, is the focus of a very deliberate and slanderous campaign to castigate him as a Nazi. And the worst thing about this horrible slanderous campaign against this very good and honorable man and true friend of the Jewish people is that it’s being conducted by American Jews in the name of fighting antisemitism.
Glick called it outrageous and said it was “lashon hara” — a Hebrew term for disparaging speech — that The Forward (a leftist Jewish publication) has “published something like thirty-nine articles against him in the past several weeks. They’re raising money on their campaign against him… It’s an embarrassment and it’s demoralizing.”
She said, “You had fifty-one Democratic congressmen signing a letter to President Trump demanding that he be fired for nothing. For lies. This is something that, again, challenges the Jewish community. It says to the Jews of the United States, where are your voices? Stand up for our friend. Stand up for our friend. Don’t allow people to slander a good and honorable man as a Nazi.”
In an interview with Breitbart News in March, Mort Klein of the ZOA said the false smears against Dr. Gorka are nothing more than “an attempt by the left wing to discredit Trump or anything Trump is associated with. This is all political. I assure you if Obama had appointed Gorka as an advisor nobody would have said one word. This is a partisan political attempt to smear President Trump’s administration because Sebastian Gorka is a great friend of Israel.”
Glick then asked the audience, “How is it possible that Linda Sarsour is given legitimacy by the second largest party in this two-party country, as a champion of human rights and a champion of women’s rights, when she denies the Jewish people our human rights and our civil rights?”
She concluded her remarks by indirectly calling for Jews to wake up to the reality of who their real enemies are.
There are enough people out there who are enemies of the Jewish people and who are enemies of the United States. We have to be able to stand united as the Jewish people, the Jewish community of the United States, and the Jewish people in Israel, the largest Jewish community in the world today, and say, we stand for freedom. Not only for others, but also for ourselves. And that means that we’re going to stand with the people who defend that freedom and we’re going to oppose those that don’t. These are the basic things that we need to do on a daily basis to ensure that all the extraordinary things that are happening in the world today, in the Jewish world today, are able to live out their potential. And we can continue to celebrate our luck in being Jews today and into the future.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.