Trump calls Joe Biden weak on antisemitism, ignoring his own rhetoric
New York (AP): Donald Trump is accusing Joe Biden of offering a weak response to antisemitism, wielding the clashes on colleges campuses over the war in Gaza as a campaign issue. But Trump's attacks ignore his own long history of rhetoric that invokes the language of Nazi Germany and plays on stereotypes of Jews and politics.
The latest example came over the weekend, when Trump accusing the White House of having a role in his multiple state and federal criminal prosecutions told Republican donors gathered for a private retreat at his Florida resort that Biden is running a Gestapo administration, referring to the secret police force of Nazi Germany.
Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, called it a deliberate tactic to attack Biden and distract from his own track record.
"It's wholly aligned with his long history of offensive and irresponsible comments when it comes to the Jewish community, including the normalization of antisemitism," Spitalnick said.
Biden's campaign called it despicable and an attack on law enforcement.
Trump's attempts to claim a moral high ground against antisemitism come as the Democratic president is navigating the intense divisions of the Israel-Hamas war and the resulting unrest from demonstrations. Trump and other Republicans have seized on the disruptions on college campuses, which have at times been violent, as a sign of weakness from Biden and Democrats. It's also the latest example of Trump's timeworn tactic of repackaging a censure he's received and stamping it on his opponents.
As pro-Palestinian demonstrations have broken out at college campuses, some people have reported antisemitic chants and messages at and around the protests and some Jewish students have said they have felt unsafe on campus. Trump's campaign on Monday released a video on Yom Hashoah, Israel's Holocaust remembrance day, that aimed to contrast the 2024 presidential candidates' responses on antisemitism.
The video shows images of Trump visiting Israel and speeches he has given pledging to stand with Jewish people and confront antisemitism, while showing footage of the protests on campuses and clips of Biden responding to protesters upset with his administration's support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
One of the clips shows Biden saying, They have a point, but does not include the next sentence in which Biden said, We need to get a lot more care into Gaza.
Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for Trump's campaign, criticized Biden for taking weeks to even talk about the Biden Campus Protests and not condemning what she described as pro-Hamas, pro-genocide mobs, saying the sad truth is that he needs their votes.
"Jewish Americans and Jewish leaders around the world recognize that President Trump did more for them and the State of Israel than any President in history," Leavitt also said Monday.
Trump also spoke about the protests as he arrived in court Monday for his trial in a felony hush money case. Noting Columbia University has cancelled its main commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests, Trump said that shouldn't happen. He also claimed that many protesters were backed by Biden donors.
Ok, are you listening Israel? I hope you're listening, Israel. Hope you're getting smart," Trump said.
Biden has said he condemns the antisemitic protests and last week, he broke days of silence and called for order after some schools cleared demonstrators by force, leading to clashes.
James Singer, a spokesperson for Biden's campaign, said Biden stands against antisemitism but Trump does not.
Trump has praised neo-Nazis, dined with neo-Nazis, echoed the rhetoric of neo-Nazis, and reportedly praised the accomplishments of Adolf Hitler, Singer said in a statement. He cannot lead us, so he seeks to divide us with the oldest of ideas hate, anger, revenge, and retribution.
After white nationalists chanting Jews will not replace us! rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and clashed with anti-racism protesters, Trump drew some of his fiercest backlash as president when he said that there were very fine people, on both sides.
Trump last week downplayed Charlottesville, saying the deadly rally was nothing compared to ongoing pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Not long after launching his third White House campaign in 2022, Trump drew widespread condemnation for having dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, shortly after he made weeks of antisemitic comments.
He's drawn criticism on his third White House campaign for using language echoing that used by Adolf Hitler to argue that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are poisoning the blood of our country, and labelled his opponents as vermin.
Trump has also been accused of promoting antisemitic tropes as he's suggested that Jewish people who vote for Democrats hate Israel and hate their religion are very disloyal to Israel. Critics have said the comments evoke the drop of dual loyalty, accusing Jews of being more loyal to their religion than their country.
After Trump's reference to Gestapo over the weekend, Jonathan Sarna, an American Jewish history professor at Brandeis University, said there are great dangers in the Nazi comparisons.
Not only it's historically incorrect, it's morally offensive, Sarna said. The problem is looking to associate whatever you don't like with the most evil forces, ignoring all the crucial differences. At that point, we forget what the Holocaust really was.
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Indigo cancels 67 flights from multiple airports due to bad weather, operational issues
Mumbai (PTI): Domestic carrier IndiGo on Thursday cancelled 67 flights from multiple airports due to "forecasted" bad weather and operational reasons, according to the airline's website.
Of the 67 cancelled flights, only four were for operational reasons, and the rest were due to "forecasted" bad weather at various airports, including Agartala, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Varanasi, Bengaluru, among others, as per the website.
Aviation regulator, DGCA, has announced the period between December 10 and February 10 next year as the official fog window this winter.
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As part of the DGCA fog operations (CAT-IIIB) norms, airlines have to mandatorily roster pilots who are trained to operate in low-visibility conditions, as well as deploy a CAT-IIIB-compliant aircraft fleet for such operations.
Category-III is an advanced navigation system that empowers an aircraft to land under foggy conditions.
Category-III-A is a precision instrument approach and landing that enables a plane to land with a runway visual range (RVR) of 200 metres, while Category-III-B helps in landing with an RVR of under 50 metres.
IndiGo, whose operations are under DGCA monitoring after the cancellations of thousands of flights early this month, is already operating a curtailed schedule in compliance with the government's order.
Under its original winter flight schedule, the airline was permitted to operate 15,014 domestic flights per week, or about 2,144 flights per day, roughly six per cent higher than the 14,158 weekly flights it operated during the summer schedule of 2025.
However, after the massive disruptions, which saw the airline cancelling 1,600 flights on a single day on account of new rest norms for pilots, which allow more rest to the pilots, the government cut down the airline's domestic flight schedule by 10 per cent or 214 flights per day.
As a result of that, IndiGo can't operate more than 1,930 flights per day on domestic routes under its current winter schedule.
The Rahul Bhatia-controlled airline cancelled thousands of flights between December 1 and December 9 on account of a lack of proper planning, and crew shortage in implementing the new set of regulations for pilots' duty period and rest, which were put in place from November 1, thereby causing severe hardships to lakhs of air travellers.
Following this, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) formed a four-member panel, comprising Joint DG Sanjay Brahamane, Deputy Director General Amit Gupta, senior Flight Operations Inspector Kapil Manglik, and FOI Lokesh Rampal, with a mandate to identify the root causes of widespread operational disruptions at the Rahul Bhatia-controlled domestic carrier.
The panel, which has already grilled IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and Chief Operating Officer Isidre Porqueras as part of its probe, is expected to submit its report by this week.
Meanwhile, IndiGo, in a travel advisory on X, said, "Low visibility and fog over Bangalore has impacted flight schedule. We are keeping a close watch on the weather and doing our best where you need to be safely, smoothly".
Reacting to the advisory, an aggrieved passenger, in an X post, said, "My flight on December 20 from Bhubaneswar to Ahmedabad got delayed for more than five hours, and today my return flight from Ahmedabad to Bhubaneswar also got delayed more than three hours with the same excuse as bad weather. I am travelling with my senior citizen parents, and this delay is not acceptable. Need proper explanation, along with compensation".
