Alt-right stokes 19th-Century fears
Can Trump shake the stigma of alt-right support? (Photos: Flash 90 AP Images AFP/Imagebank)
T en years ago when Ken Livingstone was mayor of London I was covering a Conference of European Rabbis convention in that city. Over a British breakfast that included bagels and lox and with a view of the River Thames I was interviewing Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who was then Britain’s chief rabbi.
Livingstone was busy fending off charges of anti-Semitism for a series of offensive and outrageous public comments including personal attacks on British Jews and branding Ariel Sharon as a war criminal while praising the radical British Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi as an authoritative Muslim scholar. When I asked Rabbi Sacks how he perceived Livingstone’s threat level he replied: “If he could control a crowd and motivate it to action then I would be worried. But I have seen him in front of 10 000 people in Trafalgar Square and he doesn’t have that ability.”
Anxious American Jews are asking the same question today about the threat posed by some of President-elect Trump’s most noxious supporters mainly David Duke the white supremacist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and former Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
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