Patriots owner Robert Kraft: 'Jew hatred' on U.S. college campuses is another parallel to Germany in 1930s and '40s
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said Thursday that the campus protests launched nationwide in response to Israel’s campaign in Gaza are another parallel of the lead-up to the Holocaust.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said Thursday that the campus protests launched nationwide in response to Israel’s campaign in Gaza are another parallel of the lead-up to the Holocaust.
In an interview Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Kraft, a longtime supporter of Columbia University, said that when he created the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, in part as a response to the “Unite the Right” protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, he saw rising signs of extreme hatred.
In the current college protests, he said, he’s seeing further echoes of the forces that helped give rise to the Nazis.
“It starts like it did in the ’30s in Germany,” Kraft said. “Five years ago, I saw signs of hate developing here. I don’t want the 1940s to replicate here and unfortunately, I’m seeing signs of that and good people have to stand up and be counted. And, you know, that’s where the leadership is.”
“It’s shocking to me that young Jewish students at Columbia, in New York City, are scared,” he added. “They’re going home.”
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