Trump responds to criticism after use of 'anti-Semitic term'
He sparked outrage over his use of 'shylocks,' which refers to loan sharks and is considered offensive, playing on stereotypes of Jews and money. Trump said he had never heard it used that way. 'I've never heard it that way,' he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews after his rally. 'The meaning of Shylock is somebody that's a money lender at high rates. You view it differently. I've never heard that.'
Shylock is a Jewish character in William Shakespeare's play 'The Merchant of Venice.' He is portrayed as a villain and demands a 'pound of flesh' from another character who is unable to repay a loan. Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, slammed Trump for using an 'anti-Semitic stereotype.'
'Shylock is among the most quintessential antisemitic stereotypes. This is not an accident. It follows years in which Trump has normalized antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories — and it's deeply dangerous,' she wrote on social media. Trump has been accused of anti-Semitism but he is also close to the Jewish people. His daughter Ivanka converted to Jewish with her marriage to Jared Kushner. They are raising their children as Jewish.
The president also has signed executive orders combating antisemitism and cracked down on universities that allowed pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses. Before his rally he met with Edan Alexander, an Israeli-American who was held hostage during the Gaza war.
And, on Monday, he will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House to push for an end to the war in Gaza. Trump is not the only politician to have used the word.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden used it in a 2014 speech while discussing his son's experience serving in Iraq and meeting members of the military who were in need of legal help because of problems back at home.
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Reuters
21 minutes ago
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Trump says there could be a Gaza deal next week
WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday it was good that Hamas said it had responded in "a positive spirit" to a U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire proposal. He told reporters aboard Air Force One there could be a deal on a Gaza ceasefire by next week but that he had not been briefed on the current state of negotiations.
Sky News
30 minutes ago
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Gaza: The man in the room acting as backchannel for Hamas in negotiations with US
Behind the efforts to secure the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release is the remarkable story of one man's unlikely involvement. His name is Bishara Bahbah, he's a Harvard-educated economics professor from Phoenix, Arizona. In April, his phone rang. It was Hamas. Since that phone call, Dr Bahbah has been living temporarily in Qatar where he is in direct contact with officials from Hamas. He has emerged as an important back-channel American negotiator. But how? An inauguration party I first met Dr Bahbah in January. It was the eve of President Trump's inauguration and a group of Arab-Americans had thrown a party at a swanky restaurant in Washington DC's Wharf district. There was a sense of excitement. Arab-Americans were crediting themselves for having helped Trump over the line in the key swing state of Michigan. Despite traditionally being aligned with the Democrats, Arab-Americans had abandoned Joe Biden in large numbers because of his handling of the Gaza war. I'd reported from Michigan weeks earlier and been struck by the overwhelming support for Trump. The vibe essentially was 'it can't get any worse - we may as well give Trump a shot'. Mingling among diplomats from Middle Eastern countries, wealthy business owners and even the president of FIFA, I was introduced to an unassuming man in his late 60s. We got talking and shared stories of his birthplace and my adopted home for a few years - Jerusalem. He told me that he still has the deed to his family's 68 dunum (16 acre) Palestinian orchard. With nostalgia, he explained how he still had his family's UN food card which shows their allocated monthly rations from their time living in a refugee camp and in the Jerusalem's old city. Dr Bahnah left Jerusalem in 1976. He is now a US citizen but told me Jerusalem would always be home. 1:58 He echoed the views I had heard in Michigan, where he had spent many months campaigning as the president of Arab-Americans for Trump. He dismissed my scepticism that Trump would be any better than Biden for the Palestinians. We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later. A connection with Trump Dr Bahbah invited two Arab-American friends to our lunch. Over burgers and coke, a block from the White House, we discussed their hopes for Gaza under Trump. The three men repeated what I had heard on the campaign trail - that things couldn't get any worse for the Palestinians than they were under Biden. 2:54 Trump, they said, would use his pragmatism and transactional nature to create opportunities. Dr Bahbah displayed to me his own initiative too. He revealed that he got a message to the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to suggest he ought to write a personal letter of congratulations to President Trump. A letter from Ramallah was on the Oval Office desk on 6 November, a day after the election. It's the sort of gesture Trump notices. It was clear to me that the campaigning efforts and continued support of these three wealthy men had been recognised by the Trump administration. They had become close to key figures in Trump's team - connections that would, in time, pay off. There were tensions along the way. When Trump announced he would "own Gaza", Dr Bahbah was disillusioned. And then came the AI video of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunning themselves in a Gazan wonderland. 0:35 "It is provocative and unacceptable," he told me just after the president posted the video in February. Trump must have thought it was funny, so he posted it. He loves anything with his name on it." Then came the Trump plan to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza. To this, he released a public statement titled Urgent Press Release. "Arab-Americans for Trump firmly rejects President Donald J Trump's suggestion to remove - voluntarily or forcibly - Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan," he said. He then changed the name of his alliance, dropping Trump. It became Arab-Americans for Peace. I wondered if the wheels were coming off this unlikely alliance. Was he realising Trump couldn't or wouldn't solve the Palestinian issue? But Dr Bahbah maintained faith in the new president. "I am worried, but at the same time, Trump might be testing the waters to determine what is acceptable…," he told me in late February as the war dragged on. "There is no alternative to the two-state solution." He told me that he expected the president and his team to work on the rebuilding of Gaza and work to launch a process that would culminate in the establishment of a Palestinian state, side by side in peace with Israel. It was, and remains, an expectation at odds with the Trump administration's official policy. The phone call In late April, Dr Bahbah's phone rang. The man at the other end of the line was Dr Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas. Dr Bahbah and Dr Hamad had never met - they did not know each other. But Hamas had identified Dr Bahbah as the Palestinian-American with the most influence in Trump's administration. Dr Hamad suggested that they could work together - to secure the release of all the hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire. Hamas was already using the Qatari government as a conduit to the Americans but Dr Bahbah represented a second channel through which they hoped they could convince President Trump to increase pressure on Israel. There is a thread of history which runs through this story. It was the widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who passed Dr Bahbah's number to Dr Hamad. In the 1990s, Dr Bahbah was part of a Palestinian delegation to the multilateral peace talks. He became close to Arafat but he had no experience of a negotiation as delicate and intractable as this. The first step was to build trust. Dr Bahbah contacted Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy. Witkoff and Bahbah had something in common - one a real-estate mogul, the other an academic, neither had any experience in diplomacy. It represented the perfect manifestation of Trump's 'outside the box' methods. But Witkoff was sceptical of Dr Bahbah's proposal at first. Could he really have any success at securing agreement between Israel and Hamas? A gesture to build trust was necessary. Bahbah claims he told his new Hamas contact that they needed to prove to the Trump administration that they were serious about negotiating. Within weeks a remarkable moment more than convinced Dr Bahbah and Witkoff that this new Hamas back-channel could be vitally important. On 12 May, after 584 days in Hamas captivity, Israeli-American Edan Alexander was released. We were told at the time that his release was a result of a direct deal between Hamas and the US. Israel was not involved and the deal was described by Hamas as a "good faith" gesture. Dr Bahbah sees it as his deal. 27:55 Direct talks took place between Dr Bahbah and five Hamas officials in Doha who would then convey messages back to at least 17 other Hamas leadership figures in both Gaza and Cairo. Dr Bahbah in turn conveyed Hamas messages back to Witkoff who was not directly involved in the Hamas talks. A Qatari source told me that Dr Bahbah was "very involved" in the negotiations. But publicly, the White House has sought to downplay his role, with an official telling Axios in May that "he was involved but tangentially". The Israeli government was unaware of his involvement until their own spies discovered the backchannel discussion about the release of Alexander. Since that April phone call, Dr Bahbah has remained in the Qatari capital, with trips to Cairo, trying to help secure a final agreement. He is taking no payment from anyone for his work.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Children and families forced to run for their lives after busy synagogue set alight by arsonists in Melbourne
Children and their families were among those forced to evacuate a synagogue targeted by arsonists, just as protesters descended on a nearby Israeli restaurant shouting 'offensive chants'. A group of about 20 people had to flee when a man doused the front of the temple in a flammable liquid and set it alight about 8pm on Friday, Victoria Police said. East Melbourne Synagogue president Danny Segal and his wife Jenny were among those inside enjoying Shabbat dinner at the time. 'Somebody saw smoke coming and some passers-by rang the bell and said there's something going on,' he told reporters on Saturday morning. Everyone inside evacuated safely and firefighters stopped the flames from spreading. Ms Segal said he was worried about what might have happened had the attacker gotten inside. He said the incident frightened the children. 'They were pretty scared because they felt our fear and our shock,' he said. A group of about 20 people had to flee when a man doused the front of the temple in a flammable liquid and set it alight about 8pm on Friday, Victoria Police said Investigators are still working to establish the motivation and circumstances surrounding the fire. 'There is absolutely no place in our society for anti-Semitic or hate-based behaviour,' a police spokesperson said. The synagogue, one of Australia's oldest, is close to Victoria's parliament in the heart of the city. The suspect was last seen fleeing down Albert Street towards the CBD. A short time later, protesters gathered outside Israeli restaurant Miznon on nearby Hardware Lane. Police said about 20 of them shouted 'offensive chants' and were directed to leave the area. Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said anti-Semitic terror had returned as a mob chanted 'death to the IDF', which stands for Israel Defence Forces. 'These events are a severe escalation directed towards our community and clear evidence that the anti-Semitism crisis is not only continuing but getting worse,' Mr Ryvchin said. Rabbi Dovid Gutnick (left) and Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece outside of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in Melbourne on Saturday Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich said the diners were terrorised. 'Melbourne, for one night, stopped being a safe place for Jews,' he said. One person was arrested for hindering police and several others were spoken to by investigators. The force said it supported the right of Victorians to protest peacefully but would not tolerate 'anti-social and violent behaviour'. Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said that the attack happened on Shabbat made it more abhorrent. 'This is disgraceful behaviour by a pack of cowards,' she said. Opposition frontbencher David Southwick called for greater action to stop people filled with hate who 'hijack our streets'. 'Enough talk. The perpetrators and organisers must be found and brought to justice,' he said. Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece visited the synagogue and spoke with senior members on Saturday morning. He condemned the events and said Melbourne was a city of peace and tolerance despite the terrible events. 'Nothing that we are doing here in Melbourne is going to have any impact on the terrible events in Israel and Gaza and so we do need to ask ourselves, how do we keep ourselves together as a community?' he said. The incidents come seven months after a devastating fire at the Adass Israel Synagogue at Ripponlea, in the city's south. Two of the synagogue's three buildings were destroyed in the early morning blaze, which also forced members of the congregation to flee. No charges have been laid, although counter-terrorism police have raided multiple properties as part of that investigation. The latest attacks also follow disagreement between Australia's special envoy to combat anti-Semitism and NSW MPs over a call to ban pro-Palestine protests from city centres. Jillian Segal gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry examining anti-Semitism in Sydney on Friday and was pressed on her previous statements labelling the weekly demonstrations 'intimidatory' and 'sinister'. Labor MP Stephen Lawrence suggested her comments were an 'uncivil way to describe them and the people participating'.
