Alaska GOP Senator Condemned for ‘Antisemitic’ Attack Ad on Jewish Challenger
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by Algemeiner Staff
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan’s attack ad on Jewish rival Al Gross was widely seen as antisemitic. Image: Twitter.
Alaska Republican Senator Dan Sullivan’s re-election campaign came under fire over the weekend after releasing an attack ad on his Democratic challenger that was widely denounced as antisemitic.
The ad showed Democratic contender Al Gross holding a wad of cash while standing over a pile of $100 bills. The figure of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) looms behind him in the shadows, alongside the slogan “Lower 48 Liberals Are Flooding Alaska With Millions.” Gross and Schumer are both Jewish.
Gross’s campaign tweeted in response that the ad was “disgusting” and demanded its removal by Sullivan’s campaign. Several US Jewish groups also protested, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which tweeted, “These type of accusations have been used to denigrate Jews for decades and have no place in our political discourse.”
A representative of Gross’s campaign told the Anchorage Daily News “anybody that that’s been in politics has seen this kind of stuff before.”
“The ad is antisemitic, from the creative aspects of it, to the tropes that it puts into people’s faces,” said David Keith, Gross’ campaign manager. “It’s antisemitic. Dan Sullivan knows that. Dan Sullivan isn’t an idiot, and if he wants to act like an idiot, he can do it and tell people in Alaska that he’s doing so.”
Sullivan’s campaign meanwhile strongly denied the accusation of antisemitism.
“This ad had nothing to do with race or religion, but focused on the tens of millions of dollars that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Super PACS have funneled into this race to attack Dan Sullivan and aid Al Gross,” campaign manager Matt Shuckerow said in a statement.
“It’s truly unfortunate that it’s come down to this level of attack in the final hours of a campaign,” Shuckerow added.
As Israel’s Leader of the Opposition and the son of a Holocaust survivor I have to express my anger at this antisemitic advert against the Jewish candidate for Senate in Alaska, Dr. Al Gross. It is a disgrace and a stain on the American democracy we all admire so much. https://t.co/VgcINoAKm0
— יאיר לפיד – Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) November 1, 2020
