TEL AVIV — White nationalist leader Richard Spencer told Israelis during an evening TV interview that they should respect him because he is essentially a “white Zionist.”
Spencer made the comment Aug. 16 on Channel 2 in response to a question about how he should feel about the anti-Semitism on display at the recent violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
“As an Israeli citizen, someone who understands your identify, who has a sense of nationhood and peoplehood and the history and experience of the Jewish people, you should respect someone like me who has analogous feelings about whites,” Spencer told anchor Dany Cushmaro.
“I mean, you could say that I’m a white Zionist in the sense that I care about my people. I want us to have a secure homeland for us and ourselves just like you want a secure homeland in Israel.”
Cushmaro did not follow up on Spencer’s comparison, which is rejected by Israelis and Israel supporters.
Earlier in the interview, Cushmaro pressed Spencer to explain why the far-right protestors’ chants of “Jews will not replace us” and other “anti-Jewish slogans” were not anti-Semitism.
Spencer, a leader of the racist and anti-Semitic “alt-right” movement, justified the rhetoric, citing Americans’ right to free speech and Jews outsize role in left-wing American politics.
“The fact is, Jews, let’s be honest, Jews have been vastly overrepresented in the historical left. Jews are vastly overrepresented in the left right now. They’re vastly overrepresented in what you could call the establishment, that is, Ivy League-educated people who really determine policy, and white people are being disposed from this country,” he said. “So some in the crowd were making a statement. This is a free country.
People are allowed to speak their mind.”
Asked how he would like to see President Donald Trump respond to Charlottesville, Spencer said he should investigate why the city’s mayor, Michael Signer, who is Jewish, and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe “allowed chaos to reign.” He claimed that he and the other protesters were “peaceful.”
Spencer also said both the alt-right and Trump are “symptoms of a greater cause, and that is the demographic dispossession of white people in the US and around the world.”
