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As Trump officials cozy up to Germany’s far right, everything alt is neu again
In the 1930s, American Nazis looked to Berlin for inspiration. The German-American Bund held torchlit rallies in New York, slandered Jews, preached white supremacy, and sent their children to Hitler Youth-style summer camps for indoctrination — all in service of importing the Führer’s vision to U.S. soil.
Nine decades later, the current is flowing in reverse, as Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party makes pilgrimages to Washington, D.C. — at the invitation of Trump administration officials who see the German party as unfairly ostracized.
This September, two top AfD figures met with staff from Vice President JD Vance’s office and with State Department employees. Later that month, more AfD parliamentarians arrived in D.C., where they conferred with Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter now embedded in the State Department.
Over the past several months, the Trump administration has, in effect, taken the AfD under its wing. Trump’s MAGA movement and the AfD both cast themselves as defenders of a civilization threatened by nonwhite outsiders, and both have tolerated displays of antisemitism from operatives within their ranks.
At Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration rally, Elon Musk made a gesture resembling a Nazi salute and declared, “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.” Musk later denied any Nazi intent. But he raised eyebrows again when he appeared remotely at an AfD campaign rally in Halle, Germany, in February, where he praised the party as “the best hope for Germany” and urged citizens to “move beyond” their country’s Nazi past.
At the annual Munich Security Conference in mid-February, Vance rattled America’s European partners by saying democracy in Europe was threatened not by populist parties like the AfD, but by governments’ refusal to treat them like legitimate political actors. Vance added insult to injury by having a private meeting with Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD, before returning to the states.
This chummy relationship between the Trump administration and a German political party that has been designated an extremist organization by German intelligence presents a sort of reverse mirror image of the state of affairs between the two countries back in the 1930s.
Let’s set the time machine back to July 18, 1937, and the location to a summer camp in New Jersey — Camp Nordland. Operated by the German-American Bund, it wasn’t just a retreat; it was a staging ground for fascist pageantry. Swastika flags flanked the entrance. Uniformed men marched in formation. Children sang songs of Aryan pride. Politicians and Bund leaders gave speeches praising Hitler’s vision and denouncing Roosevelt’s “Jewish government.” It was America’s own slice of the Reich, nestled in the woods of Sussex County.
Camp Nordland was not an isolated hive of American-style Nazism. There were about 200 other camps like it, stretched across the nation.
The Bund’s rallies were near-perfect replicas of Nazi spectacles in Germany, none more brazen than the one held at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 20, 1939. More than 20,000 people packed the arena as uniformed men and women marched down the aisles in Nazi-style regalia. Swastikas flanked a towering portrait of George Washington. The crowd raised stiff-arm salutes as Bund leader Fritz Kuhn took the stage and declared, to roaring applause, that “the Jew is one thousand times more dangerous to us than all the others” and that the government must be “returned to the American people who founded it.”
The Bund’s dream of an American Reich collapsed soon after. Kuhn was convicted of embezzlement. The FBI cracked down. World War II made their allegiance to Hitler politically toxic. Camp Nordland was raided and shut down in 1941. But the ideology didn’t die — it went dormant, and it is resurfacing on both sides of the Atlantic.
Following the AfD’s September visits to Washington, Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz traveled to Berlin in November, calling the AfD members of the Bundestag and party supporters “bold visionaries.”
“We are in this together,” said Bruesewitz, according to Politico. “The forces arrayed against us aren’t just ideological opponents, they’re manifestations of evil, seeking to extinguish the light of faith, family and freedom.”
“This spiritual battle isn’t confined to the United States,” he continued. “Oh, no. Germany and America may be separated by thousands of miles of ocean, but we face the same exact enemies, the same threats, the same insidious forces trying to tear us down.”
A month before Bruesewitz’s trip to Berlin, two AfD lawmakers were treated to a private reception in Manhattan, where an opera tenor serenaded them with the first stanza of “Deutschland über Alles” — a verse officially excluded from Germany’s national anthem and widely considered taboo for its Nazi associations, according to a Reuters report. The event was hosted by the New York Young Republican Club, a chapter of the national Young Republican Federation. Notably, a fall exposé by Politico revealed leaked Telegram messages from Young Republican leaders in multiple states, in which members praised Hitler, joked about gas chambers, slandered Jews and Black Americans, and fantasized about violence against political opponents.
All of this raises the question: Is there any danger in this transatlantic camaraderie between Trump’s MAGA movement and the AfD? Probably more so for Germans than for Americans.
The AfD has become a powerful player in German politics since its emergence just twelve years ago, rising from a fringe Euroskeptic movement to a dominant force — especially in the former East, where economic dislocation and cultural resentment have fueled its ascent. While Germany’s mainstream parties have steadily shed voters, the AfD has gained them. Of the Bundestag’s 630 seats, the AfD now holds 152, making it the second-largest delegation in the federal parliament. And yet, despite its electoral strength, the AfD remains politically isolated: Germany’s mainstream parties have refused to cooperate with the AfD on legislation or coalition-building.
The AfD hopes its courtship of Trump and his MAGA movement will increase pressure on Germany’s governing Christian Democrat–Social Democrat coalition to dismantle the firewall that has kept it politically isolated. Doing so wouldn’t just amplify the AfD’s influence — it could clear a path for the party to join a future governing coalition. To many Germans, this scenario evokes chilling memories of how Hitler rose to power: not by winning outright, but by exploiting the weakness and fragmentation of mainstream parties.
The AfD insists it is not a threat to democracy, despite being officially designated a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency in May. Party leaders call the label a smear, an attempt to silence dissent. That view has found defenders across the Atlantic. Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the designation as “tyranny in disguise.”
It could be argued that in some ways, what many Germans fear for their country has already happened here. In Germany, far-right ideologues are still waiting to enter government. In the U.S., they’re already inside — drafting policy, staffing agencies, shaping foreign alliances. What Germany still treats as a red line, America has already normalized.
The post As Trump officials cozy up to Germany’s far right, everything alt is neu again appeared first on The Forward.
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Amid antisemitic attacks, Trump has forced an impossible choice on American synagogues
The Thursday attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, did not occur in a vacuum.
In the past few months, shots were fired at three congregations in Toronto; an explosion rocked a synagogue in Belgium; and an arsonist caused massive damage to Beth Israel Congregation in Mississippi. Antisemitic incidents in the United States have reached historic highs. The threat is real, it is escalating, and American Jews know it.
Which is why the federal government’s decision to use this moment in history to force Jewish communities to choose between their own safety and that of immigrants is so unforgivable.
That choice is being created as part of the government’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which under President Donald Trump has instituted troubling new changes.
The program was established in 2004 to help houses of worship pay for cameras, barriers, armed guards and alarm systems, then expanded after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in 2018. It has perhaps never mattered more than it does right now. It provides, quite literally, life-saving money. The demand for grants vastly outpaces the supply, with thousands of organizations competing for a fraction of the security funds they need.
Now, those funds come with new strings attached.
Beginning in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security attached sweeping ideological conditions to new security grants. Recipients of new awards must cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and must also agree not to “operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology.” They additionally must not run any aid program which “benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”
When asked to clarify what those conditions mean in practice — whether a synagogue that declares itself a sanctuary for refugees would be disqualified, or whether a congregation offering programming for Jews of color or LGBTQ+ Jews would run afoul of the anti-DEI clause — the federal government’s answer has been months of contradictory guidance and confusion.
The terrifying potential consequences of that muddle were thrown into sharp relief by Thursday’s attack.
A man armed with a rifle rammed his truck through the doors of Temple Israel, driving down a hallway before being killed by the synagogue’s security staff. Thankfully, no congregants were hurt, and the children in the preschool run by the synagogue all made it home safely.
Many congregations do not have the independent resources to support security protocols as effective as Temple Israel’s proved to be. Instead, they rely on the government to help bridge the gap.
But under Trump’s second administration, security funding — the money that pays for the tools that may one day save lives — is now a lever to use to force political compliance.
This is of particular significance for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S. and that to which Temple Israel belongs. The movement’s commitment to welcoming the stranger, hachnasat orchim — stemming from the commandment to love the stranger, repeated no fewer than 36 times in the Torah — is core to its identity. It is no coincidence that many Reform congregations have declared themselves sanctuaries for refugees.
And it’s of particular significance because antisemitic violence is often linked to anti-immigrant sentiment. The deadliest act of antisemitic violence in U.S. history, the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, was motivated by hatred toward immigrants, and toward Jewish programs that aid them.
The Trump administration’s demand that liberal American Jews choose between a foundational Jewish value and basic safety from violence is heartbreaking. One anonymous rabbi described the dilemma with devastating clarity to JTA: “Money is being given to us on condition that we violate a specific mitzvah. I don’t see how we can possibly accept that money.”
Rabbi Jill Maderer in Philadelphia put it even more bluntly, saying “Jewish safety requires inclusive democracy and inclusive democracy requires Jewish safety. We do not comply so we will not apply.”
These are communities under armed threat — as Thursday clearly reminded us — forced to choose between their physical safety and their moral integrity. That is a choice that no American religious community should ever have to make. The government’s obligation to protect its citizens, especially its most targeted minorities, must not come with an ideological price tag.
What makes this especially galling is the timing. A government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, born out of a political standoff over immigration enforcement, is currently halting the review of security grant applications. Synagogues that applied for funding months ago are waiting for approvals that may not come.
They are waiting, in many cases, to find out whether the security upgrades that might have made the difference under circumstances like those that unfolded in Michigan will be funded or not.
There is a word for demanding that a persecuted minority community abandon its values in exchange for protection: extortion. The Trump administration would no doubt dispute that framing. After all, the administration claims to care deeply about Jewish safety. Thursday’s attack makes clear that it is not enough for the administration to make that claim; it must prove its commitment through action.
It must remove the political conditions from the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. It must let houses of worship be what they are: sanctuaries, not instruments of federal policy.
The post Amid antisemitic attacks, Trump has forced an impossible choice on American synagogues appeared first on The Forward.
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‘For As Long As Necessary’: Katz Says Campaign Against Iran Entering Decisive Stage
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
i24 News – Israel Katz said Saturday that the confrontation with Iran had entered a “decisive phase,” as US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets continued and regional tensions escalated.
Speaking after a security assessment at Israel’s defense headquarters alongside Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and senior military and intelligence officials, the Israeli defense minister said the campaign against the Islamic Republic would continue “for as long as necessary.”
“The global and regional struggle against Iran, led by American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is intensifying and entering its decisive phase,” Katz said.
Katz also praised US strikes on Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil hub, describing them as a “severe blow” to the Iranian regime. He said the attacks were an appropriate response to Iranian threats against the strategic Strait of Hormuz and to what he called Tehran’s attempts to pressure the international community.
At the same time, Katz said the Israeli Air Force was continuing a “powerful wave of attacks” against targets in Tehran and other parts of Iran.
He accused the Iranian leadership of using “regional and global terrorism” and strategic blackmail in an effort to deter Israel and the United States from pursuing their military campaign, warning that such actions would be met with a “strong and uncompromising response.”
Katz added that the outcome of the conflict would ultimately depend on the Iranian population. “Only the Iranian people can put an end to this situation through a determined struggle, until the overthrow of the terrorist regime and the salvation of Iran,” he said.
According to the minister, the confrontation now pits the Iranian regime’s determination to survive against growing military pressure from Israel and its allies.
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Trump Rejects Efforts to Launch Iran Ceasefire Talks, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump’s administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war that started two weeks ago with a massive US-Israeli air assault, according to three sources familiar with the efforts.
Iran, for its part, has rejected the possibility of any ceasefire until US and Israeli strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, adding that several countries had been trying to mediate an end to the conflict.
The lack of interest from Washington and Tehran suggests both sides are digging in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices soaring.
US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island, the country’s main oil export hub, on Friday night underscored Trump’s determination to press ahead with his military assault. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and threatened to step up attacks on neighboring countries.
The war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, and created the biggest-ever oil supply disruption as maritime traffic has halted in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
ATTEMPTS TO OPEN LINES OF COMMUNICATION
Oman, which mediated talks before the war, has tried multiple times to open a line of communication, but the White House has made clear it is not interested, according to two sources, who like others in this story were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about diplomatic matters.
A senior White House official confirmed Trump has rebuffed those efforts to start talks and is focused on pressing ahead with the war to further weaken Tehran’s military capabilities.
“He’s not interested in that right now, and we’re going to continue with the mission unabated. Maybe there’s a day, but not right now,” the official said.
During the first week of the war, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Iran’s leadership and military were so battered by US-Israeli strikes that they wanted to talk, but that it was “Too Late!” He has a history of shifting foreign policy stances without warning, making it hard to rule out that he might test the waters for restarting diplomacy.
“President Trump said new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and eventually will talk. For now, Operation Epic Fury continues unabated,” a second senior White House official said when asked to comment on this story.
The Iranian sources said Tehran has rejected efforts by several countries to negotiate a ceasefire until the US and Israel end their airstrikes and meet Iran’s demands, which include a permanent end to US and Israeli attacks and compensation as part of a ceasefire.
Egypt, which was involved in mediation before the war, has also tried to reopen communications, according to three security and diplomatic sources. While the efforts do not appear to have made progress, they have secured some military restraint from neighboring countries hit by Iran, according to one of the sources.
Egypt’s foreign ministry, the government of Oman and the Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment.
POSITIONS HARDEN ON ALL SIDES
The war’s impact on global oil markets has significantly increased the cost for the United States.
Some US officials and advisers to Trump urge a quick end to the war, warning that surging gasoline prices could exact a high political price from the president’s Republican Party, with US midterm elections looming.
Others are pressing Trump to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic to destroy its missile program and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to Reuters reporting.
Trump’s rejection of diplomatic efforts could indicate that, for now, the administration has no plans for a quick end to the war.
Indeed, both the United States and Iran appear even less willing to engage than during the opening days of the war, when senior US officials reached out to Oman to discuss de-escalating, according to several sources.
One source said Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had also sought to use Oman as a conduit for ceasefire discussions that would have involved U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
But those discussions have not materialized.
Instead, Iran’s position has hardened, said a third senior Iranian source.
“Whatever was communicated previously through the diplomatic channels is irrelevant now,” said the source.
“The Guards strongly believe that if they lose control over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran will lose the war,” the source added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite paramilitary force that controls large parts of the economy.
“Therefore, the Guards will not accept any ceasefire, ceasefire talks, or diplomatic efforts, and Iran’s political leaders will not engage in such talks despite attempts by several countries.”