hikind jdl
<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/amid-wave-right-wing-vigilantism-tucker-carlson-hosts-guest-ties-domestic-terrorist">https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/amid-wave-right-wing-vigilantism-tucker-carlson-hosts-guest-ties-domestic-terrorist</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amid wave of right-wing vigilantism, Tucker Carlson hosts guest with ties to domestic terrorist group</font></div><header class="editorial-fullheader" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.3rem; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="bylinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">WRITTEN BY</span> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/author/madeline-peltz" hreflang="en" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">MADELINE PELTZ</a></font></p><div class="dateline--group" style="box-sizing: border-box; align-items: center; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;"><p class="dateline" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: 2px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="datelinelabel" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: 0.5rem;">PUBLISHED</span> <time datetime="2020-09-04T15:39:11-0400" style="box-sizing: border-box;">09/04/20 3:39 PM EDT</time></font></p></div></header><div class="editorial-fullarticle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 2.25rem;"><div class="field field--name-field-stories-content field--type-entity-reference-revisions field--label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Amid a national <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/09/01/trump-far-right-vigilantes-protests/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">wave of right-wing vigilantism</a> that has cost anti-police brutality demonstrators their lives, Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson hosted Dov Hikind, a former New York State Assembly member with <a href="https://imeu.org/article/new-york-state-assemblyman-dov-hikind" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">ties to a right-wing domestic terror group</a>. Hikind and Carlson smeared Joe Biden as supporting anti-Semitism for meeting with the father of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/25/us/who-is-jacob-blake-trnd/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Jacob Blake</a>, a Black man who was shot in the back seven times by police in Kenosha</span>, Wisconsin, on August 23. Right-wing figures have been <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/09/02/jacob-blake-sr-has-long-history-of-racist-antisemitic-anti-christian-posts-set-to-meet-joe-biden/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">circulating social media posts</a> that were supposedly made by Blake’s father.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the September 3 segment, Carlson characterized Biden’s visit to the grieving father as “giving moral authority to someone like Jacob Blake Sr.” Hikind responded by calling it “pathetic” and said “people in my community asked me is there a future in America” for Jews because Democrats “are endangering this country.” He also attacked Muslim and Jewish members of Congress Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).[vid]</font></p><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hikind is not new to Fox News -- he’s appeared on the network at least three times since 2017. The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), a nonprofit group whose goal is to inform journalists about issues affecting Palestinians and Palestinian Americans, has an <a href="https://imeu.org/article/new-york-state-assemblyman-dov-hikind" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">explainer</a> on Hikind’s ties to racism, right-wing violence, and extremism, some of which has been summarized and expanded below:</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hikind was a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/08/nyregion/indicted-assemblyman-was-a-fighter-and-still-is.html?pagewanted=2" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">member</a> of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a violent anti-Arab extremist group with <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/jewish-defense-league" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">ties to decades of right-wing terrorism</a>, including an international incident in 1994 when a JDL member “massacred 29 Palestinian Muslims kneeling in prayer at a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron.” The FBI <a href="https://imeu.org/article/new-york-state-assemblyman-dov-hikind" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">describes</a> the JDL as a “violent extremist Jewish organization” and a “right-wing terrorist group.</span>”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/jewish-defense-league" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">According to the Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, the JDL was founded as “part of the white backlash surrounding the New York City teachers' union strikes of 1968”, and its activities included sending squads of JDL members to “patrol” parts of the city that were “predominantly Jewish areas, which ultimately led to an ethnic polarization of neighborhoods.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An article from The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/17/nyregion/the-gladiators-of-borough-park-rivals-compete-for-power-in-an-orthodox-arena.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">described</a> Hikind as an “important leader” of the JDL during the 1970s, a time when the group was responsible for “bombing Russian targets in New York to publicize the plight of Soviet Jews. Although Mr. Hikind and his former league associates say he was never directly involved in the violence, by his own count arrested five times in demonstrations, including once for chaining himself to the gate of the Soviet Union's United Nations Mission.” The SPLC points out that many Jews in Moscow were <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/jewish-defense-league" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">opposed</a> to the violence being wrought on their behalf by the JDL.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://imeu.org/article/new-york-state-assemblyman-dov-hikind" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Hikind was an ally to Rabbi Meir Kahane</a>, the founder of the JDL who also founded the Israeli Kach party, which according to the IMEU “advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York TImes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/08/nyregion/outpouring-for-kahane-pity-or-a-new-respect.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">described</a> Hikind as an “intimate” friend of Kahane who spoke at his funeral, saying it “gave legitimacy to many of the ideas for which Rabbi Kahane stood.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While serving in the New York State Assembly, Hikind <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/nyregion/hikind-defends-wearing-blackface-to-purim-party.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">wore</a> blackface to a Purim party in 2013. When his offensive costume was reported in the press, Hikind responded by writing a blog that characterized criticism as “political correctness to the absurd.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2017, Hikind spoke at an <a href="https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/05/26/a-spiteful-afternoon-with-nys-anti-muslim-hate-brigades/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">event</a> hosted by <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/pamela-geller" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-Muslim bigot Pamela Geller</a> alongside <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">white supremacist Milo Yiannopolos</a> and attended by <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/gavin-mcinnes" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Gavin McInnes</a>, founder of the violent far-right street gang <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">the Proud Boys</a>.</font></li></ul><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2017, HuffPost <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dov-hikind-terror-jewish-defense-league-linda-sarsour_n_59122e36e4b05e1ca202c78c" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported</a> on Hikind's involvement with the JDL and published his response to questions from reporter Christopher Mathias in full. Mathias summarized Hikind's response:</font></p></div></div><blockquote class="block-quote block-quote--collapsable" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);"><div class="block-quotequote" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1.5rem;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because there has been little public accounting of Hikind’s role in the organization, HuffPost sent the assemblyman a detailed list of questions this week about his relationship to the JDL. In response, Hikind gave HuffPost an exclusive statement ― a full copy of which can be read at the bottom of this article ― in which he states that he “couldn’t recall with greater fondness” his time with the group.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Over 43 years ago, I was very proud to be part of the Jewish Defense League,” Hikind wrote.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although Hikind claims his role in the JDL was “non-violent,” his statement did not address specific HuffPost questions regarding whether he once called for the assassination of pro-Palestinian Arab-Americans; whether he was a close friend of a man convicted of carrying out 20 bombings in New York and Washington, D.C.; or regarding why the FBI suspected him in plotting six bombings of Arab targets across the U.S.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He did not answer a question regarding whether he had knowledge of, or involvement in, other JDL plots that involved violence or were otherwise illegal. He also did not deny that in 1976 he tossed a smoke bomb into the Ugandan mission at the United Nations in New York, saying in his statement that he did a “few pranks” at the Ugandan mission, “for which I was never charged.”</font></p></div></blockquote><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox News has been <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/black-lives-matter/gunman-killed-two-protesters-kenosha-fox-news-figures-have-sided-shooter" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">awash</a> with support for violent right-wing vigilantism. In recent days, Carlson has <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-how-shocked-are-we-17-year-olds-rifles-decided-they-had-maintain" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">defended the right-wing vigilante</a> who <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/kyle-rittenhouse-charged-with-killing-two-in-kenosha-emerges-as-a-cause-celebre-to-some-11598998441" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">shot and killed two protesters</a> in Kenosha, and even <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-hosts-lawyer-accused-kenosha-shooting-suspect-friendly-interview" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">hosted his lawyer</a> for a sympathetic interview. <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/fox-news-support-violent-right-wing-vigilantism-horrifying-it-was-inevitable" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">As my colleague Matt Gertz describes it</a>, this trend in the network’s coverage is as “horrifying as it was inevitable.” </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hosting Hikind, who has historic ties to right-wing terrorism, is yet another way Carlson and Fox News work to legitimize right-wing vigilantism.</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div>