US Republican Congressman Randy Fine has caused widespread controversy after suggesting in an interview that Gaza should be ‘nuked’, during the same week he called for Palestinian activism to be ‘put down’.
In an interview with Fox News, Fine suggested that Gaza should be eliminated, likening it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War.
“In the Second World War, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis. We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice to get unconditional surrender,” he said.
The comments come following the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, with the perpetrator stating the move was in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza suffering under Israeli bombardment.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, slammed the comments and demanded he apologise for the rhetoric. The group also called for him to be removed from all congressional committees and caucuses.
CAIR said the statement amounts to explicit incitement to violence and endangers American Muslims and Palestinians.
“Let’s be clear: Randy Fine is not just a dangerous bigot. He is a sitting member of Congress openly fantasising about the nuclear genocidal extermination of Palestinians,” CAIR’s government affairs director Robert S McCaw said in a statement.
“Fine’s deranged rhetoric is not only morally reprehensible but also deeply damaging to the Trump administration’s stated efforts to establish a ceasefire and pursue peace in the region. He’s not a so-called Make America Great Again Republican, he’s a Make Israel Great Republican, no matter how many civilians have to be murdered to prove it,” he added.
The organisation earlier this month sent a letter to all US House of Representatives and more than 1,600 congressional staffers, calling on them to condemn Fine’s long record of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian rhetoric.
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