Washington Post: Anti-Islamist Sebastian Gorka Returns to the White House
The Washington Post reported that the return of right-wing Sebastian Gorka to the White House under President-elect Donald Trump is worrying, given his hardline views on Islam and his past positions, which included defending the decision to ban citizens of Muslim-majority countries from entering during Trump’s first administration.
Trump announced on Friday that he had chosen Gorka for two key positions, deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism.
Gorka served in the previous Trump administration as national security adviser for seven months until his sudden resignation due to disagreements with some members of the government.
The announcement was met with dismay even among Trump’s most loyal Republicans, who called Gorka a marginal and unqualified figure who was not qualified to be in politics and, in a reference to his former job in television broadcasting, said, “he was better suited to newsroom chatter than directing policy from the White House”.
They also noted that the national security team considers him a “clown,” and a person close to members of the new administration said that “almost everyone hates working with him”.
Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, called on the FBI to investigate Gorka’s credentials, as critics have questioned the credibility of his professional and academic credentials.
Before entering politics, Gorka, a British-Hungarian American, worked with far-right political activist Stephen Bannon at Breitbart News, and before that taught national security courses at military institutions such as the National Defense University.
Critics of Trump’s decision have expressed concern about Gorka’s relatively hardline views on Islam compared to the prevailing rhetoric in Republican circles.
Gorka, during his previous position, exploited people’s fears of Muslims to craft a narrative that portrayed Islam as a direct threat to Western civilization and its values.
He also inflamed public sentiment by linking Islam to terrorism, and asserted that if strict steps weren’t taken to combat terrorist groups, the United States would fall into their grip under the authority of “extremist Islamic Sharia”.
After watching unedited footage of the Hamas attack on Israel, as he described it, he addressed Israeli leaders, saying, “Kill them one by one,” and adding, “God bless Israel… God bless the Judeo-Christian civilization”.
