If I was asked to guess which major newspaper outside of the Middle East published an op-ed raving and ranting about the evils of “the Jews,” I’d have guessed Der Sturmer in the Germany of the middle or late 1930s. Imagine my shock and dismay, then, when I learned that it was in fact The Salt Lake Tribune which recently published just such a hate-filled screed by Michael S. Robinson.
In it Robinson included classic anti-Semitic tropes like “the Jews” maintain that they cannot be criticized, “the Jews” are unable to muster any compassion, and “the Jews” control American politics through money and lobbying. He also despicably minimized the Holocaust by comparing it to an irrelevant past minor injury. Robinson also denied any legitimate Jewish connection to the land of Israel, and called Israelis “monsters.”
It isn’t rocket science to discern the frank anti-Semitism of an op-ed like this. Our State Department and the European Union specifically define the scurrilous libels Robinson penned as forms of anti-Semitism. It also isn’t rocket science to discern the obvious hate-mongering motive of The Salt Lake Tribune in publishing Nazi propaganda like this. But your newspaper has allied itself with history’s worst villains, so it might actually take rocket science to rescue your besmirched reputation as a result.
Daniel H. Trigoboff, New York
