Washington – The White House said President Donald Trump had been right not to jump to conclusions about anti-Semitic threats following the arrest last week of an Israeli-American teen on suspicion of making over 100 bomb threats against U.S. Jewish sites.
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“We saw these threats coming into Jewish community centers, and there was an immediate jump to criticize folks on the right, and to denounce people on the right and ask them to condemn them, and it turns out that in fact it wasn’t someone on the right,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday at a media briefing. “The president from the get-go had said ‘I bet you it’s not someone [on the right]’ and he was right.”
Spicer added that “people on the left” who had blamed the right for the threats had not been held accountable.
“In that particular case, we saw that the president was right and that this rush to judgment by a lot of folks on the left was wrong, and none of them have been held to account on that,” Spicer said.
Last week, an Israeli-American teen was arrested in southern Israel on suspicion of carrying out bomb threats on Jewish institutions in the United States. The 19-year-old, Michael Kaydar, reportedly used advanced technology and voice-altering equipment to call in the threats to more than 100 JCCs, Jewish day schools and other Jewish institutions in the United States.
Many Jewish groups had blamed white supremacists, emboldened by Trump’s campaign, for the bomb threats that plagued Jewish institutions since the beginning of this year. In February, the president reportedly said that the threats against Jewish communal institutions may be a false flag “to make others look bad.”
Also in February, when asked about the bomb threats, Trump shouted down a Jewish reporter who asked him about what he planned to do to address the intensification of incidents.
“Some of that anger is caused by people on the other side,” he then told another reporter at the news conference. “It will be by people on the other side to anger people like you.”
Yes Yonasonw and hashomer watch your alternate facts.
no one was asking the Pres to “jump to conclusions”. The Jewish community was asking the President to condemn threats and attacks against Jewish communities and for the FBI to investigate which they did.
A nebuch cancer patient teenager in Israel did not destroy my g-grandparents’ graves in Phila.
And also did not put the swastikas all over synagogues, Jewish homes, cars and headstones.
This is just a red herring to detract from the alarming increase in anti Semitism since November.
Hmmm. No comments yet? The president of was correct and certain Jewish agencies owe him an apology.
A straight yiddishe “kop” knew its all empty threats. I kept on saying its all a hoax trying to smear Trump but everyone was screaming wolf. Poor ADL. You were thriving on it and now your just a stupid fool like u deserved to be.
The President did not mess up and jump to conclusions. Good for him. (It does seem a rather low bar for a President to meet.)
I agree with #9 , regarding #5 ; #5 is a fool, for believing that such despicable acts have only started since November, 2016. Anti-semitism in the United States has existed, even before the USA was a republic. Peter Stuyvesant, the anti-semitic official of New York, when it was a Dutch colony, in the 1600’s, did not want any Jews to settle there. Even when they were allowed to come, their numbers were restricted. During the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant prohibited Jewish merchants from selling their goods, in certain areas of the South. However, his order was rescinded by President Lincoln. For many years, there were no Jewish chaplains in the U.S. armed forces. At one time in the early 20th century, the anti-semitic police commissioner in NYC, blamed most crime on Jews. There were thousands of incidents over the last 100 years of assaults against Jews, vandalism against Jewish institutions, and other heinous acts directed against Jews. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, when Sen. Abe Ribicoff was making a speech, Mayor Daley shouted out to him “Sit down, you filthy Jew”. Anti-semitism in the USA, did not start, with Trump’s election.