Days after the retaliatory attack by Iran on Israel this weekend, U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he would try to move a wartime aid package this week on the House floor which would include funding for Israel, Ukraine and allies in Asia.
Fellow House Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has been a loud critic of sending more money to Ukraine (and filed a motion to vacate Johnson after he voted in favor of the $1.2 trillion government funding bill), wrote on Sunday: “It’s antisemitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding Ukrainian Nazis. These should be separate bills.”
It’s antisemitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding Ukrainian Nazis.
These should be separate bills.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) April 14, 2024
Greene is being accusing of regurgitating Russian propaganda, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has used similar words against Ukrainians to justify Russia’s war against Ukraine. (Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022).
According to the U.S. Department of State, Putin has referred to Ukraine’s democratically elected government as a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis,” while Russian state media and propagandists have repeatedly called for the “denazification” of the entire population of Ukraine.
Greene’s detractors also criticized what they portray as a contradiction in her position: In February, the Congresswoman voted against a standalone Israel support bill which would have provided $17.6 billion in aid for Israel.
The group Republicans Against Trump responded to Greene’s comment: “It’s despicable and antisemitic to spew Kremlin propaganda and call President Zelensky, a Jewish man (whose family was murdered by the Nazis), and the brave people of Ukraine fighting for their freedom- ‘Nazis.’”
Kremlin propagandists also have a history of targeting Zelensky’s Jewishness and Ukraine’s relations with Israel. In 2019, Putin’s former economic advisor Sergey Glazyev accused the Jewish Ukrainian President of planning to replace the Russian-speaking population of eastern and southern parts of Ukraine with Israeli Jews.