Palestinian Authority paper calls Jason Greenblatt a 'mongoloid' - report

In an attack featured in an op-ed rejecting the unpublished US Middle East peace initiative, a columnist compared Greenblatt’s appearance and conduct to someone suffering from Down Syndrome.

MARCH 3, 2019 20:17

Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason D. Greenblatt (photo credit: WHITE HOUSE) — Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason D. Greenblatt

(photo credit: WHITE HOUSE)

A regular columnist for the official Palestinian Authority paper called US Special Envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt "a mongoloid," Palestinian Media Watch reported on Sunday.

“Anyone who follows the prattle of Jason Greenblatt, President [Donald] Trump's envoy in the matter of the deal of the century, sees that his condition is very similar to Down Syndrome,” Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, who was once the adviser to former PA prime minister Salam Fayyad, wrote in the official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.

In an attack featured in an op-ed rejecting the unpublished US Middle East peace initiative, Al-Ghoul stated that Down Syndrome “strikes all the components of the American administration. Anyone who examines the general genes of the components of the Trump administration sees that it is a politically crippled creature.”

US Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman slammed the publication, saying, "I am disgusted —not for Jason (he’s got broad shoulders) — but by this utter disregard for the value of every human life."

In today’s issue of Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official daily of the PA, Jason Greenblatt is criticized as a “Mongoloid” & acting as if he has Downs Syndrome. I am disgusted —not for Jason (he’s got broad shoulders) — but by this utter disregard for the value of every human life.
— David M. Friedman (@USAmbIsrael) March 3, 2019

Kalman Samuels, the chair of Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, said that referring to Greenblatt or any other human being as a mongoloid and retarded, and detailing those so-called characteristics is "not only outrageous, but delegitimizes the most basic human rights." Those archaic hurtful terms have been out of use for decades in the civilized world.

"It has oft been said that the litmus test of a society is how it treats its weakest links, and this is clear testament," Samuels continued. "Shalva, the organization that I have the privilege to head, cares for hundreds of persons with Downs from infancy to maturity, from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, with the dignity and love that every human being deserves and quite frankly they are awesome.”