Page 8A
NATION
East Oregonian
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Trump denounces anti-Semitism in forceful condemnation
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres-
ident Donald Trump on Tuesday
condemned recent threats against
Jewish community centers in the
U.S. as “painful reminders” of
lingering prejudice and evil, his first
full-throated comments on the rise
of anti-Semitic venom after pres-
sure for him to speak out forcefully.
With his somewhat delayed
denunciation, Trump sought to
reset his relationship with American
Jews, which has been strained by a
recent White House statement on
the Holocaust, comments by some
of his supporters and his own frac-
tious exchange with a reporter for
an Orthodox Jewish publication.
Trump’s latest remarks, made at
the newly opened National Museum
of African American History and
Culture, marked the first time he
directly addressed recent incidents
of anti-Semitism. Earlier in the day,
the White House put out a statement
denouncing “hatred and hate-moti-
vated violence” but not mentioning
Jews, the weekend vandalism at a
Jewish cemetery or multiple threats
to community centers Monday.
Eleven Jewish community
centers across the country received
telephoned bomb threats, according
to the JCC Association of North
America. Like three waves of
similar phone calls in January, the
new threats proved to be hoaxes,
the association said in a statement.
In addition, as many as 200 head-
stones were damaged or tipped over
at a Jewish cemetery in suburban St.
Louis late Sunday or early Monday.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump tours the National Museum of African
American History and Culture on Tuesday in Washington.
“The
anti-Semitic
threats
targeting our Jewish community
and community centers are horrible
and are painful and a very sad
reminder of the work that still must
be done to root out hate and preju-
dice and evil,” Trump said. He did
not outline what that might entail.
On Monday, Trump’s daughter
Ivanka Trump wrote on Twitter,
“We must protect our houses of
worship & religious centers,”
and used the hashtag #JCC. She
converted to Judaism ahead of her
2009 marriage to Jared Kushner.
She joined her father at the Afri-
can-American museum tour.
The FBI said it was joining
with the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division to investigate
“possible civil rights violations in
connection with threats.”
Ryan Lenz, spokesman for the
Southern Poverty Law Center, said
it has seen an uptick in incidents
since Trump’s election. “People are
much more willing to express their
bigoted selves than they were prior
to the election,” Lenz said.
Trump’s statement Tuesday
followed a series of episodes that
put some American Jews on edge.
Last week at a news conference,
Trump tangled with a reporter from
an Orthodox Jewish publication,
cutting him off as he asked about a
rise in bomb threats. The president,
who seemed to interpret the query
as an attack on him personally, said
it was “not a fair question” and
went on to say he was the “least
anti-Semitic person that you’ve
ever seen in your entire life.”
In January, the White House
drew criticism for a statement
commemorating the Holocaust that
did not mention the murder of Jews,
in contrast with previous adminis-
trations. The statement, criticized
by the Anti-Defamation League and
others, was defended by the White
House as inclusive.
And throughout his campaign,
Trump was criticized for what some
saw as belated and inadequately
forceful denunciations of hateful
rhetoric by some of his supporters.
Trump’s top strategist Stephen
Bannon came under fire for stories
published by Breitbart News, which
he’d led before joining Trump’s
campaign. During the campaign,
Trump at times appeared to play to
stereotypes, including tweeting out
an anti-Hillary Clinton image that
included what appeared to be a Star
of David atop a pile of money.
Still, Trump has won strong
support in some circles as an impas-
sioned backer of Israel.
Trump welcomed Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
the White House last week and
signaled a new closeness between
the countries as he withheld clear
support for an independent Pales-
tine and declared he could endorse
a one-nation solution to the long
dispute between Palestinians and
Israel.
Trump working on trans bathroom guidelines
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Trump administration
is working on a new set
of directives on the use of
school bathrooms by trans-
gender students, the White
House said Tuesday.
The
announcement
alarmed LGBT groups across
the country that have urged
President Donald Trump to
safeguard Obama-era guide-
lines allowing students to use
school restrooms that match
their gender identity, not their
assigned gender at birth.
White House spokesman
Sean Spicer did not provide
any details on the new guide-
lines that are being prepared
by the Justice Department,
but said Trump has long
held that such matters should
be left to the states, not
the federal government, to
decide.
“I think that all you have
to do is look at what the
president’s view has been
for a long time, that this is
not something the federal
government
should
be
involved in, this is a states’
rights issue,” Spicer said.
The Obama administra-
tion’s guidance, issued last
May, held that transgender
students can access restrooms
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File
In this 2016 file photo, a new sticker is placed on the
door at the ceremonial opening of a gender neutral
bathroom at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle.
and participate in school
athletics according with the
gender they identify with.
Schools were also instructed
to treat students in line with
their expressed gender iden-
tity without requiring any
medical proof.
While the move was
hailed by rights organiza-
tions, it was attacked by
conservative groups, which
called it federal overreach
and an infringement on the
personal space and safety of
all other students.
A patchwork of state laws
and policies on the issue is
emerging.
Fifteen states have explicit
protections for transgender
students, and many individual
school districts in other states
have adopted policies that
recognize students on the
basis of their gender identity,
said Sarah Warbelow, legal
director of the Human Rights
Campaign. Just one state,
North Carolina, has enacted
a law restricting students’
bathroom access to their sex
at birth. But so far this year,
lawmakers in more than 10
states are considering similar
legislation, according to the
National Conference of State
Legislators.
Vanita Gupta, who was
head of the Justice Depart-
ment’s Civil Rights Division
under President Barack
Obama, blasted the Trump
administration’s attempt to
alter the guidelines.
“To cloak this in feder-
alism ignores the vital and
historic role that federal law
plays in ensuring that all
children, (including LGBT
students) are able to attend
school free from discrim-
ination,” Gupta said in a
statement.
But Ryan Anderson, a
senior research fellow with
the conservative Heritage
Foundation, said the Obama
guidelines were unlawful
because Title IX protects
students based on their sex,
not their gender identity.
He said that those direc-
tives violated the rights of
other students, especially
girls who may have suffered
from sexual abuse in the
past and do not want to be
exposed to male anatomy.
He said that students,
parents and teachers should
work out “win-win” solu-
tions at the local level, such
as equipping schools with
single-occupancy restrooms
or locker rooms.
At a joint news conference,
Trump called Israel a symbol of
“survival in the face of genocide.”
Trump’s Tuesday comments
were praised by several Jewish
organizations.
Jonathan Greenblatt, chief
executive of the Anti-Defamation
League, the Jewish civil rights
group that has been highly critical
of Trump, called the statement an
“important first step.”
“I think the Jewish community
has been looking for leadership
from the president. I was encour-
aged to hear him step up and say
that proactively and now we need
to look for the follow-up so we
can move from words to action,”
Greenblatt said.
Matt Brooks, executive director
of the Republican Jewish Coali-
tion, said in a statement that his
group applauds “President Trump
and his daughter Ivanka for their
strong words in condemning these
unspeakable actions.”
Still, some said Trump had not
done enough. On its Facebook
page, the Anne Frank Center for
Mutual Respect called Trump’s
Tuesday comments a “Band-Aid on
the cancer of Antisemitism that has
infected his own Administration.”
White House spokesman Sean
Spicer pushed back against those
remarks at a news conference
Tuesday. He said Trump has spoken
forcefully against hate, arguing,
“It’s ironic that no matter how many
times he talks about this that it’s
never good enough.”
Milo Yiannopoulos apologizes
for remarks, quits Breitbart
NEW YORK (AP)
— Polarizing right-wing
writer Milo Yiannopoulos
was by turns apologetic
for comments he made
about sexual relationships
between boys and men and
adamant he had been the
subject of “a cynical media
witch hunt” on Tuesday as
he spoke after resigning as
an editor at Breitbart News.
Yiannopoulos opened
his remarks to reporters by
saying two men, including
a priest, had touched him
inappropriately when he
was between the ages of 13
and 16.
“My experiences as a
victim led me to believe I
could say anything I wanted
to on this subject, no matter
how outrageous,” he said.
“But I understand that
my usual blend of British
sarcasm, provocation and
gallows humor might have
come across as flippancy,
a lack of care for other
victims or, worse, advo-
cacy. I am horrified by that
impression.”
The British writer said
he was resigning from
Breitbart, which helped
make him a star, because it
would be “wrong to allow
my poor choice of words to
detract from my colleagues’
important reporting.”
The apology followed
days of criticism from
fellow conservatives after
the release of video clips
in which Yiannopoulos
appeared to defend sexual
relationships between men
and boys as young as 13.
In one of them, Yian-
nopoulos, who is gay, said
relationships between boys
and men could “help those
young boys discover who
they are and give them
security and safety and
provide them with love
and a reliable sort of rock,
where they can’t speak to
their parents.”
On Monday, he was
disinvited from the Conser-
vative Political Action
Conference after video of
his remarks was promoted
through social media.
Publisher Simon &
Schuster announced it
would cancel the publica-
tion of his upcoming book.
Yiannopoulos said the
book had already received
interest from others and
will be published this year.
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