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President Joe Biden’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Brazil made a sequence of remarks in a 1998 interview now being known as out via lawmakers on all sides of the aisle as anti-Semitic, in keeping with a file in The Washington Free Beacon.
Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, whose nomination hearing earlier than the Senate Foreign Members of the family Committee was final month and is being voted with the aid of the committee on Thursday, made the comments in a 1998 interview with a historian, which was bought via the Free Beacon.
On the time of the interview, Bagley used to be U.S. Ambassador to Portugal below former President Bill Clinton.
“There’s all the time the affect of the Jewish lobby as a result of there’s main cash concerned,” she mentioned within the interview. “But, I don’t keep in mind that any main considerations coming out on that, in addition to the usual ‘make Jerusalem the capital of Israel,’ which is always a subject matter within the campaign.”
She also stated that “the Democrats all the time tend to move with the Jewish constituency on Israel and say silly things, like transferring the capital to Jerusalem always comes up. Issues that we shouldn’t even contact.”
Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, known Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and moved the U.S. embassy to there from Tel Aviv the following May just.
“Jewish Democrats have been going to present their cash to Clinton anyway and Jews are largely Democrats on social issues,” she additionally said within the interview.
She added that “the Jewish factor, it’s cash,” when arguing that the Jewish neighborhood is extra highly effective financially than in the case of its vote casting bloc.
All over her May just listening to, Democratic members of the committee confronted Bagley about pushing anti-Semitic tropes in the 1998 interview.
“Is it a suggestion that one group of American citizens don’t have the correct to engage within the political course of as others do?” asked committee chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). “Phrases, especially for individuals who are going to be ambassadors of the USA to other nations are incredibly necessary, most definitely extra significant than perhaps in our individual day-to-day lives.”
“The language you utilized in regard to the Jewish community, Israel’s affect on our election, and Jewish money have me concerned,” mentioned Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). “The collection of phrases was once fit into the traditional tropes of anti-Semitism.”
Bagley apologized for her remarks, pronouncing she was once “very sorry about that choice of phrases.”
The put up Biden Ambassador Nominee Underneath Fireplace For Anti-Semitic Tropes: ‘The Jewish Issue, It’s Money’ first appeared on Mediaite.