Trump criticised for using antisemitic term to describe money lenders
Shylock refers to the villainous Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice who demands a pound of flesh from a debtor.
The Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat antisemitism, said in a statement that the term 'evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous. President Trump's use of the term is very troubling and irresponsible'.
Democrat Joe Biden, while vice president, said in 2014 that he had made a 'poor choice' of words a day after he used the term in remarks to a legal aid group.
Mr Trump's administration has said cracking down on antisemitism is a priority. His administration said it is screening for antisemitic activity when granting immigration benefits and its fight with Harvard University has centred on allegations from the White House that the school has tolerated antisemitism.
But the Republican president has also had a history of playing on stereotypes about Jewish people.
He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that 'you want to control your politicians' and suggested the audience used money to exert control.
Before he kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign, Mr Trump drew widespread criticism for dining at his Florida club with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist.
Last year, he made repeated comments accusing Jewish Americans who identify as Democrats of disloyalty because of the Democratic leaders' criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Critics said it perpetuated an antisemitic trope about Jews having divided loyalties and there being only one right way to be Jewish.
On Thursday night in his speech in Iowa, Mr Trump used the term while talking about his signature legislation that was passed by Congress earlier in the day.
'No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing some from, in some cases, a fine banker and in some cases shylocks and bad people,' he said.
When a reporter later asked about the word's antisemitic association and his intent, Mr Trump said; 'No, I've never heard it that way. To me, a shylock is somebody that's a money lender at high rates. I've never heard it that way. You view it differently than me. I've never heard that.'
The Anti-Defamation League said Mr Trump's use of the word 'underscores how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply entrenched in our country. Words from our leaders matter and we expect more from the President of the United States'.
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The Herald Scotland
16 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Who are the shadowy figures running US-Israeli aid operation in Gaza?
At their disposal was $3 million in $100 bills, satellite communications equipment, and the weapons required for their covert mission of linking up with anti-Taliban forces and laying the groundwork for the larger US invasion to come. It goes without saying that none of the initial seven-member team were exactly household names, even if their extensive time within what was then known as the CIA's 'Special Activities Division' (SAD) had forged them something of a formidable reputation. Among the team was its deputy leader Philip Francis Reilly, who had been doing much the same 'special activities' in Central America back in the early 1980s to the early 1990s where he helped train Nicaragua's right-wing insurgent Contra militias trying to topple the socialist Sandinista government. It all seems like a long time ago, but Reilly has been a fixture in the US intelligence and covert community for quite a while now. Currently – albeit unnoticed by many – his activities are still making headlines, for Reilly's present area of operations these days is in Gaza. There he runs the US private military contractor Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) which, along with another private security contractor, UG Solutions, act as partner to the controversial US-Israeli organisation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that has sidelined the UN and other international organisations as the main supplier of aid in Gaza. Last week, GHF was hit by fresh controversy when one former security contractor who had worked for them told journalists that he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who posed no threat. Members of a private US security company, contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private US-backed aid group which the UN refuses to work with over neutrality concerns, direct displaced Palestinians as they gather to receive relief Heated debate WHILE GHF has said the allegations are categorically false, the shadowy group from its very inception has been at the centre of heated debate as to precisely what role it performs in Gaza and at who's behest. So just what is known about GHF, those behind it and where its money comes from? The organisation was first established in February this year, shortly after Israel passed legislation seeking to bar the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), the single largest provider of humanitarian aid in occupied Palestine. Israel has long sought to neuter the work of UNWRA which it claims was close to the Hamas authorities. The Israeli authorities say that Hamas made between $0.5bn and $1bn from stealing aid last year, though they have provided no backing for these figures. Other sources reckon Hamas's income was $1bn last year, mostly from foreign earnings. But by early March through to mid-May, Israel anyway had blocked all aid from entering Gaza before announcing its solution: the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Almost overnight, a 14-page leaked document circulated among aid groups and journalists setting out the concept and modus operandi of GHF. In short, this was to provide aid to Palestinians from a network of aid distribution hubs secured by armed private contractors and ultimately, beyond their perimeter, by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). So far, Israel has established three such centres south of the Morag corridor, a security strip in southern Gaza, and a fourth near Gaza City, in the north. GHF was registered in America two weeks after Donald Trump took office, and its address is one of a company that incorporates firms. Delaware is a US state acknowledged to have a less than rigorous approach towards ensuring company transparency. Asked by one reporter who visited the company why an organisation would have its registered address there but not be based there, one employee is said to have replied: 'So they're not bothered.' As well as being registered in the US, the GHF is also listed as a non-profit organisation in Switzerland. Since then, Trial International, a Swiss NGO, has filed a request for an investigation, asking authorities to investigate whether GHF adheres to international humanitarian law and Swiss law. READ MORE DAVID PRATT IN UKRAINE: Devastating snapshots of a brutal conflict with no end in sight DAVID PRATT IN UKRAINE: Inside the small village that stood fast against Russia's attempt to capture Kyiv David Pratt on The World: The signs that war in Europe can be avoided are anything but good David Pratt's Four Corners: Black Sea deal offers a grain of hope – but it won't end this brutal war Last week, Switzerland initiated proceedings to dissolve the Geneva branch of the GHF, citing legal shortcomings in its establishment. 'The ESA may order the dissolution of the foundation if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period,' the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) said in a creditors notice published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce last Wednesday. The ESA told reporters the GHF had not fulfilled certain legal requirements including having the correct number of board members, a postal address, or a Swiss bank account. For its part, the 'GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland... and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered (branch),' the ESA added in a statement. Right-wing Knesset members Itamar Ben-Gvir (L) and Bezalel Smotrich, attend a special session at the Knesset Israel's parliament, to approve and swear in a new right-wing government, in Jerusalem 'Out of nowhere' THE absence of a funding paper trail along with the sometimes opaque backgrounds of some key players in setting up the GHF are only a few of many concerns since it first appeared almost out of nowhere. As far as the structure of the GHF operation goes, its components are as follows: GHF acts as the overall umbrella organisation. After the early resignation of its original executive director Jake Wood in May, who said the GHF would not be able to fulfil the principles of 'humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence', he was replaced by former USAID official John Acree and former Trump adviser Johnnie Moore. The latter is an evangelical preacher and public relations professional with close ties to both the White House and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Moore was instrumental in an evangelical Christian drive during Trump's first term in office to convince the president to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and move the US embassy there. Alongside GHF run its private security partners Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, headed by Reilly and the sole American director of SRS's Israeli branch and financial officer, Charles 'Chuck' J Africano. According to a report by the broadcaster France 24, Africano and Reilly have had past professional dealings, including around 2015 at another security firm Constellis – a successor to the controversial private military contractor Blackwater that gained notoriety for a civilian massacre in Iraq. The two also overlapped at the private security and surveillance firm Circinus, itself a subject of some past controversy related to dealings with foreign governments and its access to high-ranking US officials. Africano's connections with the GHF were first highlighted by the online news portal Middle East Eye and independently confirmed from public records by France 24, says the broadcaster. In a recent report, it also cited Africano as a member of the 'private LinkedIn group of the Tampa-based special operations contractor Quiet Professionals' which it says was acquired last month by the private equity firm McNally Capital. Quiet Professionals is led by Andy Wilson who, on his company's own webpage, is described as a 'valorous combat decorated retired Sergeant Major of the United States Army with 20 years of service… 14 of which were served in a Special Mission Unit'. Quiet Professionalss chief business officer Leo Kryszewski is also known to have spent four years with the CIA's Special Activities Division and the US Army's Office of Military Support, a clandestine intelligence unit often referred to within Joint Special Forces Command (JSOC) as Task Force Orange Helping draw up the blueprint for the GHF, comprising of these main constituent players and parties, was one of the world's most prestigious consulting firms – the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), though the group has since distanced itself from yjr GHF. But as a Financial Times (FT) investigation revealed a few days ago, before disavowing the project, 'BCG's role was more extensive than it has publicly described'. People carry boxes of relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) Israeli think tank ACCORDING to the FT investigation, BCG was originally engaged by Orbis, a Washington-area security contractor that was preparing the study on behalf of the Tachlith Institute, an Israeli think tank. BCG was chosen as a consultant, according to people familiar with the early work, says the FT, 'because of its longstanding relationship with Philip Reilly, an ex-CIA operative who worked for Orbis'. Citing the same sources, the FT said BCG's involvement stretched 'over seven months covering more than $4m of contracted work and involving internal discussion at senior levels of the firm'. As part of the project, codenamed 'Aurora', the BCG team is said to have also built a financial model for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza. This included cost estimates 'for relocating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the strip' and the economic impact of such a mass displacement. One scenario estimated more than 500,000 Gazans would leave the enclave with 'relocation packages' worth $9,000 per person, or around $5bn in total, the FT detailed. For its part, BCG told the FT senior figures were repeatedly 'misled on the scope of the work by the partners running the project'. Referring to the work on post-war Gaza, BCG said: 'The lead partner was categorically told no, and he violated this directive. We disavow this work.' Just precisely where much of the funding for the GHF comes from remains as shrouded in secrecy as the background of some of the individuals involved. These past weeks the US announced $30m for the GHF but it's thought to have received over $150m so far, much of which is believed to have has gone on hiring mercenaries, some from American private security firms. One job advertisement from UG Solutions said it was seeking 'Special Forces qualified personnel, SFOD-A/CAG, Green Berets, Army Rangers, PJs, Marine Reconnaissance (MARSOC), or other similar backgrounds'. Those 'skilled in unconventional warfare tactics' and selected ' must be ready to deploy within two weeks of May 20, 2025', the advertisement confirmed. While questions remain as to where exactly all of GHF's funding comes from, last month former Israeli defence minister and opposition MP, Avigdor Lieberman, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz he was convinced that Israel's defence ministry and its intelligence arm Mossad were the main paymasters. To date, the GHF's performance in Gaza has been abysmal and mired in controversy. According to most global humanitarian organisations, its presence is only making an already dire situation in Gaza even worse. As a result, these past few days, more than 170 NGOs have called for immediate action to end the 'deadly' GHF aid scheme and revert back to United Nations-led aid co-ordination mechanisms. GHF's role has thrown into sharp focus the dangers of outsourcing core humanitarian functions to private actors and whether, in fact, it is legally or ethically defensible. What happens next with the GHF involves two possible scenarios. The first is that its presence will be transitory, having failed to deliver on an aid mission that should be undertaken by the UN. The cost, meantime, in terms of Palestinian suffering and lives will only continue to rise. The second scenario is that the GHF remains and becomes an instrument of power as part of a strategy that many believe is aimed at herding Palestinians into designated areas to enable a wider process of ethnic cleansing. 'Greater Israel' ISRAEL'S far-right politicians including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, doubtless see the work of the GHF as crucial in their messianic mission to create a 'greater Israel'. Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continues to speak of creating 'a sterile zone' for Palestinians. For decades now the CIA's Special Activities Division – now renamed the Special Activities Center (SAC) – has performed countless covert roles, some helping to orchestrate regime change in many places. The Latin motto of SAC is Tertia Optio, which means 'Third Option'. In other words, covert action represents an additional option within the realm of national security when diplomacy and military action are not feasible. With diplomacy at an effective standstill over Gaza, the obvious danger is that other 'options' become in the eyes of some the real way 'forward'. While the GHF's security partners Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions are private companies, the fact that their chief officers and many within their ranks are past operatives of the CIA and its SAC leaves many uneasy. Just as the likes of Philip Reilly and his CIA team all those years ago in Afghanistan were tasked with laying the groundwork for what was to come, could it be that now, through the use of private contractors, much the same is being done in Gaza today? The fact that figures like Reilly and others still have the ear or indeed direct links to senior US government and Israeli officials only adds to this growing disquiet over the actual motives behind GHF's shadowy role in Gaza.
Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Elon Musk faces glaring hurdle as he forms new America Party after Trump feud
Elon Musk could be facing a major challenge as he works to launch his new 'America Party'. The former 'First Buddy' announced the foundation of the new party on his X social media platform on Saturday. However, there currently exists a bureaucratic obstacle to Musk getting the new movement off the ground: the Federal Elections Commission. The FEC states that 'new party organizations must register with the FEC when they raise or spend money over certain thresholds in connection with a federal election.' So far, it appears no such registration has been made by Musk, as The New York Times reported the Tesla CEO's game plan to this point has been 'more conceptual than pragmatic.' Even if he had, however, there may be no potential approval coming from the FEC in the near future by design. The agency is meant to be run by six commissioners, appointed by the sitting president. Right now, there are three empty seats on the FEC, not enough to form what's known as a quorum necessary for governing. Three commissioners have stepped down since the president began his second term in January, leaving it essentially defunct until Trump makes those appointments. Trump has yet to name any potential nominees and the White House has yet to address Musk's intention to form a new party. has approached the White House for comment. Democrat Ann Ravel, who served on the FEC from 2013 to 2017, believes Trump may already want to leave it in shutdown mode for his own motivations. 'Clearly, there is no doubt that President Trump wants to purposely leave the FEC without a quorum,' she claimed to Open Secrets. The America Party's founding came after Musk created an online poll on July 4 asking his followers whether to establish the new party. The results came back 65.4 percent in favor, leading Musk to make the announcement. 'By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!' Musk wrote. 'When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. 'Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.' Musk had been elevated to a prestigious role within the White House acting as a special advisor to the president and overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency. But in recent months a rift has emerged and the two former friends have been embroiled in embarrassing public spats played out over social media. Many had predicted that Trump and Musk's rosy bromance wouldn't last long and some pointed to betting markets on when they would turn on each other. Betters heavily favored a fallout before July 1, 2025, less than six months after Musk joined Trump's administration as a special advisor. In just a matter of months Musk went from spending $288 million for Trump's election campaign, to slinging insults about him online. The bust up occurred after Musk stepped down from DOGE over Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' which ends tax breaks for electric vehicles, which are Tesla CEO Musk's passion project. Musk also argued that the bill undercut DOGE's cost-cutting efforts by increasing the deficit. The rift deepened after the president rescinded his nomination offer to Musk-ally Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator over donations he made to the Democrats. Since then Trump and Musk have engaged in public mudslinging against each other. Musk accused the president of ingratitude and claimed he would have lost the election without him, while Trump branded him 'crazy '. Since their public break-up, Musk has threatened to start a new, third political party and buttress the reelection campaign of Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the no votes on Trump's big bill. Trump recently outed himself as the person who leaked details about Musk's alleged drug use, according to author Michael Wolff, who penned the eye-popping book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. The New York Times reported that during the 2024 presidential campaign, the billionaire used so much ketamine he was having bladder problems and also used Ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and what appeared to be Adderall.
The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The UN is our best defence against a third world war. As Trump wields the axe, who will fight to save it?
The United Nations and its agencies have long struggled with funding shortfalls. Now an entrenched problem is becoming an acute crisis in the shadow of Donald Trump's executioner's axe. The US is the biggest contributor, at 22%, to the UN's core budget. In February, the White House announced a six-month review of US membership of all international organisations, conventions and treaties, including the UN, with a view to reducing or ending funding – and possible withdrawal. The deadline for decapitation falls next month. Trump's abolition of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and scrapping of most aid programmes, has already badly damaged UN-led and UN-backed humanitarian operations, which rely on discretionary funding. Yet Trump's axe symbolises a more fundamental threat – to multilateralism and the much-battered international rules-based order. The basic concept of collective responsibility for maintaining global peace and security, and collaboration in tackling shared problems – embodied by the UN since its creation 80 years ago last week – is on the chopping block. The stakes are high – and Washington is not the only villain. Like the US, about 40 countries are behind in paying obligatory yearly dues. Discretionary donations are declining. The UN charter, a statement of founding principles, has been critically undermined by failure to halt Russia's illegal war of aggression in Ukraine (and by last month's US-Israeli attack on Iran). China and others, including the UK, ignore international law when it suits. The number and longevity of conflicts worldwide is rising; UN envoys are sidelined; UN peacekeeping missions are disparaged. The security council is often paralysed by vetoes; the general assembly is largely powerless. By many measures, the UN isn't working. A crunch looms. If the UN is allowed to fail or is so diminished that its agencies cannot fully function, there is nothing to take its place. Nothing, that is, except the law of the jungle, as seen in Gaza and other conflict zones where UN agencies are excluded, aid workers murdered and legal norms flouted. The UN system has many failings, some self-inflicted. But a world without the UN would, for most people in most places, be more dangerous, hungrier, poorer, unhealthier and less sustainable. The US is not expected to withdraw from the UN altogether (although nothing is impossible with this isolationist, ultra-nationalist president). But Trump's hostile intent is evident. His 2026 budget proposal seeks a 83.7% cut – from $58.7bn to $9.6bn – in all US international spending. That includes an 87% reduction in UN funding, both obligatory and discretionary. 'In 2023, total US spending on the UN amounted to about $13bn. This is equivalent to only 1.6% of the Pentagon's budget that year ($816bn) – or about two-thirds of what Americans spend on ice-cream annually,' Stewart Patrick of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted. Economic development aid, disaster relief and family planning programmes would be gutted. The impact is potentially world-changing. Key UN agencies in the firing line include the children's fund, Unicef – at a time when the risks facing infants and children are daunting; the World Food Programme (WFP), which could lose 30% of its staff; agencies handling refugees and migration, which are also shrinking; the International court of justice (the 'world court'), which has shone a light on Israel's illegal actions in Gaza; and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran's and others' nuclear activities. Trump is already boycotting the World Health Organization, the Palestinian relief agency (Unrwa) and the UN Human Rights Council, and has rescinded $4bn allocated to the UN climate fund, claiming that all act contrary to US interests. If his budget is adopted this autumn, the UN's 2030 sustainable development goals may prove unattainable. US financial backing for international peacekeeping and observer missions in trouble spots such as Lebanon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kosovo, currently 26% of total spending, will plunge to zero. The withdrawal of USAID support is already proving lethal, everywhere from Somalia and Sudan to Bangladesh and Haiti. UN officials describe the situation in post-earthquake, conflict-riven, aid-deprived Myanamar as a 'humanitarian catastrophe'. Research published in the Lancet found that Trump's cuts could cause more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, a third of them children. The WFP, the world's largest food aid supplier, says its projected $8.1bn funding deficit this year comes as acute hunger affects a record 343 million people in 74 countries. And other donor states are failing to fill the gap left by the US. So far in 2025, only 11% of the $46.2bn required for 44 UN-prioritised crises has been raised. The UK recently slashed its aid budget by £6bn, to pay for nuclear bombs. UN chiefs acknowledge that many problems pre-date Trump. António Guterres, the secretary general, has initiated thousands of job cuts as part of the 'UN80' reform plan to consolidate operations and reduce the core budget by up to 20%. But, marking the anniversary, Guterres said the gravest challenge is the destructive attitude of member states that sabotage multilateral cooperation, break the rules, fail to pay their share and forget why the UN was founded in the first place. 'The charter of the United Nations is not optional. It is not an à la carte menu. It is the bedrock of international relations,' he said. Guterres says the UN's greatest achievement since 1945 is preventing a third world war. Yet respected analysts such as Fiona Hill believe it's already begun. The UK and other democracies face some pressing questions. Will they meekly give in to Trump once again? Or will they fight to stop this renegade president and rogue states such as Russia and Israel dismantling the world's best defence against global anarchy, forever wars and needless suffering? Will they fight to save the UN? Simon Tisdall is a Guardian columnist
