Anti-Defamation League: Trump’s South Africa tweet based on ‘false white supremacist claim’

The Anti-Defamation League slammed President Trump on Thursday, hours after he said he asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into “land farm seizures” and the “large scale killing of farmers” in South Africa. 

“It is extremely disturbing that the President of the United States echoed a longstanding and false white supremacist claim that South Africa’s white farmers are targets of large-scale, racially-motivated killings by South Africa’s black majority,” the nongovernmental organization said in a statement on Thursday morning. “White supremacists in the United States have made such claims for years.”

The group went on to cite instances in 2012 when white supremacists in the United States geared up for protests in what they called the “South Africa Project (SAP).”

{mosads}“The goal of the organizers, which included representatives from major neo-Nazi, racist skinhead, ‘traditional white supremacist,’ Christian Identity groups, as well as racist prison gangs, was to stop the alleged ‘genocide of Whites’ in South Africa,” the organization wrote. “The protests originated in 2011 at the hands of Monica Stone, a long-time member of the Louisiana-based white supremacist Christian Defense League and immigrant from South Africa.” 

Since then, the organization said references to “genocide” in South Africa have been common among white supremacists.

“We would hope that the President would try to understand the facts and realities of the situation in South Africa, rather than repeat disturbing, racially divisive talking points used most frequently by white supremacists,” the organization added in the statement.

Trump’s tweet on Thursday appeared to reference a segment Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired on the topic the same morning, titled “Inside South Africa’s racist land seizures.”

In his tweet, the president mentioned violence against white farmers, but various reports suggest the number of killings of white farmers hit a 20-year low in the past year. 

I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018

Trump also quoted the Fox News host as saying the country is “now seizing land from white farmers.”