The Forward newspaper has again wrongly smeared counter terrorism and radical terrorism expert, Deputy Assistant to President Trump, and Strategic Initiatives Group member Dr. Sebastian Gorka, falsely claiming he’s hostile to Jews. In fact the opposite is true – Dr. Gorka is a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people, and courageous fighter against all forms of totalitarianism, including neo-Nazi fascism, communism, and militant radical Islam.
ZOA and others who are familiar with Dr. Gorka including Co-Chair of the Israel Allies Caucus Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ), who called Gorka “the staunchest friend of Israel and the Jewish people”; Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute; EU Commissioner and Hungarian colleague Tibor Navracsics who said that Gorka “has spent his life battling fascists and anti-Semites of all sorts.” Bruce Abramson and Jeff Ballabon previously debunked in the Jerusalem Post the Forward’s prior scurrilous attempts to smear Dr. Gorka as “anti-Semitic.” (See “ZOA: FORWARD’S Campaign Calling Trump Aide Gorka Anti-Semitic is a Lie – Gorka is Friend of Jews/Israel,” Mar. 17, 2017; and “Statement in Response to Media Attacks Against Dr. Sebastian Gorka,” Cong. Trent Franks Press Release, Feb. 25, 2017.)
However, instead of retracting its former false statements, the Forward has “doubled down” – with “down” being the operative word, because the Forward’s latest allegations have reached a new low. The Forward is now attempting to smear Dr. Gorka as anti-Semitic, using a video of a Hungarian television interview, spliced to delete Dr. Gorka’s denunciation of the anti-Semitic parties and the fact that Dr. Gorka’s party was not involved with the anti-Semitic parties. (See, e.g., “Anti-Semitism at the “Jewish” Forward,” by David P. Goldman, PJ Media, Apr. 4, 2017; and “Hit-Piece On Trump Counter-Terror Official Is Over Before It Starts– Again,” by David Reaboi, RedState.com, Apr. 4, 2017.)
As David Goldman explained (see above-cited article), the Forward’s propaganda turned “black into white, day into night, democracy into tyranny, [and] friendship with the Jewish people into anti-Semitism.” In the actual interview that the Forward mangled, Dr. Gorka “explicitly warns that the right-wing parties FIDESZ (the party of the current prime minister Victor Orban) and the extreme right, anti-Semitic Jobbik Party are exploiting popular fears. . . [Dr. Gorka’s] party has nothing to do with it, he emphasizes.” In other words, Dr. Gorka “took precisely the opposite position that the Forward attributed to him.”
ZOA’s Morton Klein recently met and had a long meeting with Dr. Gorka at the White House, and can confirm that Dr. Gorka is a great friend of the Jewish people and Israel. Dr. Gorka takes great pride in the fact that his father, Paul Gorka, was honored by the Jewish charity in Budapest for the work he did to help Budapest’s Jews. Among other things, Paul Gorka walked with Jewish classmates to and from school to keep Nazis from attacking them. At ZOA’s request, Dr. Gorka sent us the relevant passages from Paul Gorka’s memoir, “Budapest Betrayed.” Dr. Gorka’s father recalled:
“[During interrogation by communists who imprisoned]: On the first few occasions, I denied everything about our activities. For this, I had to endure days without food, but nothing worse for the time being. During the more routine and boring parts of the long night-time sessions of interrogation with the man we called ‘the one with the broken tooth,’ I had the opportunity to give details of my curriculum vitae – excluding my resistance activities. I mentioned that, after the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, I stood by one of my best schoolfriends who was compelled to wear the yellow star. I took him by the arm and walked with him past the stationary German Tiger Panzers along the main road leading from his home to our school, Budaorsi Street. No harm came to either of us. . . .
Because of our activities on behalf of our Jewish friends, I remember that the post-war Jewish help organization, the JOIST, gave my mother food parcels (mostly containing large jars of tomatoes), as an acknowledgement of our assistance to their people in need and in danger.”
Here are additional facts regarding some of the other absurd “anti-Semitism” allegations leveled against Dr. Gorka:
- Dr. Gorka’s father was involved in resistance to the Nazis, and democratic resistance to the Soviet Communists. He was caught, imprisoned and brutally tortured by the Communists. In 1979, Hungarian exiles awarded Paul Gorka a Vitéz (“valiant”) medal for his “resistance to dictatorship.” Incredibly, when, in memory of his beloved father, Dr. Gorka wore this medal awarded for resistance to totalitarianism, those trying to smear Dr. Gorka falsely claimed that it was a Nazi medal! (See “EXCLUSIVE: Seb Gorka Tells True Story Behind Smears Against Him,” Breitbart, Feb. 15, 2017; and “Read Seb Gorka’s Father’s Amazing Story Of Espionage, Fighting The Soviets And The Hungarian Revolution,” by David Reaboi, Redstate.com, Feb. 27, 2017, which contains the moving prologue to Dr. Gorka’s book, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War (2016).)
- False guilt by association charges have also been leveled at Dr. Gorka. As Breitbart recently explained: “The Forward also falsely claimed that Gorka had once pledged loyalty to the postwar anticommunist Historical Vitézi Rend; a racist rival to the Vitézi Rend. Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Joel B. Pollak noted, “The word ‘historical’ was added to allude to the original Vitézi Rend, which was co-opted by Hungary’s Nazi-aligned government and later banned.” Gorka told Tablet on Thursday, “I have never been a member of the Vitézi Rend. I have never taken an oath of loyalty to the Vitézi Rend.”” (See “EXCLUSIVE: ZOA’s Morton Klein: ‘Sebastian Gorka Is a Great Friend of Israel’,” by Adelle Nazarian, Breitbart, Mar. 21, 2017.)
It’s time for the Forward to stop using fake news to wrongly malign a great friend of our people. Dr. Sebastian Gorka.