GOP lawmaker promotes article that praised him for standing up to ‘Jewish warmongers’
Official email listserve for Rep. Paul Gosar includes article from Holocaust-denying website that hailed his opposition to US aid for ‘Nazi’ regime in Ukraine
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
A far-right Republican member of Congress used his official House email listserv on Sunday to promote an article from a Holocaust-denying website that praised him for condemning the “Jewish warmongers” backing US support for the “Nazi” regime in Ukraine.
The headline in Rep. Paul Gosar’s newsletter read, “Congressman Gosar: Warmongers Nuland & Blinken ‘Are Dangerous Fools Who Can Get Us All Killed,'” editing the version of the headline on the original site, which highlighted the Jewish heritage of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.
The link accompanying the headline took readers to a story in Veterans Today, which the Anti-Defamation League has said serves as a platform for antisemitic content and Holocaust denial.
“Ukraine is the world’s first openly Nazi state since 1945,” the article stated. Attempts to tie the Ukrainian government — led by Jewish President Volodymyr Zelensky — to the Nazis are common among Russian officials and backers. Ukraine critics point to the marginal Azov battalion of the military that has been accused since its formation in 2014 of associations with neo-Nazi ideology.
“$100 billion of your tax money is going to help Nazis,” Gosar wrote in the newsletter. “I will never support Nazis and I condemn our country’s support and military aid to Nazis.”
Media Matters, which first revealed the content of Gosar’s latest newsletter, said that the article on Gosar’s anti-Ukraine stance appeared to have first been published by the Russia-backed Sputnik news site. Veterans Today then published its own version and added the word “Jewish” into the headline.
Congressman Paul Gosar, in his official newsletter this week, linked to an article praising him in a neo-Nazi site. And we know that he *knew* it was antisemitic because he removed the antisemitic part from the headline! https://t.co/Bzb9peDeYf pic.twitter.com/wjc9yx8O1Z
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) April 17, 2023
Gosar’s office responded Tuesday that Veterans Today had updated the headline after the newsletter, but Media Matters said the far-right site’s headline included “Jewish warmongers” since the day it was published on February 26.
Gosar has been criticized for his ties to white nationalist groups for the past several years.
He was a featured speaker at the 2021 America First Political Action Conference, a far-right event founded by Holocaust-denying white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Gosar has held other fundraisers with Fuentes and has repeatedly declined to condemn Fuentes’ movement’s ideology when asked, despite condemnations from top Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Democrat-controlled House voted to remove Gosar from his committee roles in 2021 after he posted an animated video manipulated to show him killing progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Arizona representative claimed Jewish billionaire George Soros funded the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and compared the FBI agents who raided former US president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to the “Brownshirt” Nazi militias.
