Los Angeles, CA – Pulitzer prize-winning historian Saul Friedlander, a world authority on the Holocaust, said Friday he would leave the United States if Donald Trump was elected president.
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The 83-year-old Israeli-American writer, who escaped the Nazis by being hidden in a Catholic boarding school in France, described Trump as a “dangerous crazy.”
He said the controversial Republican candidate could win November’s election because of Hillary Clinton’s “tendency to lie and to hide things.
“One cannot exclude Donald Trump from winning, even though he is a dangerous crazy,” he told AFP.
“He says whatever comes into his mind.”
Friedlander’s magisterial two-volume history of Nazi Germany and the Jews charts Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in a period where populism was rising across the world as it is today.
“We don’t know what (Trump) thinks,” said the writer, whose parents perished in Auschwitz after being handed over to the Germans by French police as they tried to escape to neutral Switzerland.
“At the same time, there is a huge swathe of Americans, mostly poor, angry whites, who dream of having him in the White House.
“He is kind of a release valve for their anger against the ‘establishment’ represented by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“Because she has, unfortunately, a tendency to lie and to hide things,” he said, referring to her recent bout of pneumonia, which her campaign was only forced to disclose after she was seen stumbling into her car.
“Trump, by comparison, seems totally open and frank, even if he has not published his income tax returns.”
Friedlander, who is based in Los Angeles, also warned of the rise of anti-Semitism and of Holocaust denial.
“Negationists are, in general, anti-Semites, and I am utterly opposed to debating with them. It gets you nowhere, they will always find a so-called detail showing that all these stories of gas chambers were a joke.
“They are obsessed by the idea that Jews could have invented the story of their extermination,” said the author, whose new books, “Reflections on Nazism” and “Where Memory Leads,” have just been published in France.
The historian — who left France for Israel after World War II and worked as an assistant to former president Shimon Peres — has been very critical of the Jewish state’s treatment of the Palestinians.
“But I am also worried about the rising movement, particularly on US university campuses, questioning Israel’s right to exist.”
He said extremism on both sides had done “profound damage” to the chances of a Middle East peace settlement.
“I remain a supporter of a two-state solution, but my friends in Israel say that if a Palestinian state is created on the West Bank, it will be in the hands of Hamas, like Gaza. Then Israel will be surrounded by people determined to destroy it, they say.
“However, if we want to build peace, we have to halt settlement building, destroy wildcat settlements and abandon others,” Friedlander said of Israeli construction on land seized during the 1967 Six Day War that the Palestinians want for a future state.
“We have to do that at least to show good faith.
“If not, we risk losing the values of justice and equality that were once at the heart of Israel and Zionism,” he added.
what this Friedlander guy is doing is extremely reckless if he wants to leave america no one will stop him but going to the press and giving such of a irresponsible statement can put in danger the whole american jewry
Does he need help packing?
Have a safe trip, Saul!
Friedlander is right on…I dare people to label him a “self-hating Jew.”
Deceptive headline , meant to imply Trump is some kind of Nazi.
His expertise on the Holocaust DOES NOT give any added weight to his political judgement. (In fact in this case I would call his judgement into question). Not every Trump supporter is a white supremacist, just as not every JEW is a liberal holywood type.
Enough already!
Sounds like Friedlander is the main nut case. First he says that Trump’s crazy because he says whatever comes into his mind (how does that make someone crazy?), and then he says that we don’t know what he’s thinking (but I thought he ways whatever comes into his mind!)
who needs him anyway
Can I drive him to the train or the airport? I hope he won’t let the door hit him on the way out. I just love these celebrities who threaten to leave if they don’t get their way. I recall a bunch of “Lefty Hollywood types” who threatened to leave if GW Bush was elected. Last time I looked, they were still here.
Trump is Israel’s best choice. Sorry but this Friedlander guy seems to have it dead wrong by helping nuclear iran supporter Hillary. If you want nuclear missiles falling on Israel vote for hillary and her freedom hating party that is supporting terror nations. It is that simple!
A great many American citizens will be right behind him leaving the US if Trump wins. He’s an ego maniac with a temper and a short attention span which makes him dangerous regardless of his current positions on issues.
Good bye Saul Friedlander.
Why do liberal intellectuals believe that for Israel to believe in justice and equality it must self destruct?
The 2 state solution is not the only solution. And it’s not a solution that’s good for Israel, or the middle east.
Saul Friedlander is the typical liberal who suffers from the mental disease that other liberals suffer from. He thinks that everyone is inherently “good”, and that if someone hates Jews, or Israel (or Whites, or Americans), it’s our fault and we should do more to make them like us. They don’t understand that there are evil people in the world who need to be put down, like rabid dogs, and not to sit with them & Try to find out why they hate us.