A New Low: Trump’s Special Envoy Greenblatt ‘is a Mongoloid,’ Says Official PA Daily

An op-ed in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official Palestinian Authority daily, compared Jason Greenblatt’s appearance to that of someone suffering from Down Syndrome. 

By Maurice Hirsch and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch

In an unprecedented personal attack, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, a regular columnist for the official Palestinian Authority (PA) daily and once the adviser to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs, called US President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, a “mongoloid.”

In an op-ed rejecting the as-yet-unpublished US Middle East peace initiative, Trump’s “deal of the century,” Al-Ghoul compared Greenblatt’s appearance and conduct to that of someone suffering from Down Syndrome:

“Anyone who follows the prattle of Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s envoy in the matter of the deal of the century, sees that his condition is very similar to Down Syndrome… Anyone who looks at the American envoy [Greenblatt] discovers that he has external and inner characteristics similar to those suffering from Down Syndrome: He is short, his eyes are similar to Mongoloid eyes, he prattles unrestrainedly, and is politically retarded.”

Al-Ghoul added that it is not only Greenblatt who suffers from Down Syndrome but the entire Trump administration:

“The ill Greenblatt is not the only one who has Down Syndrome, for it 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.”

Al-Ghoul ended by saying that Trump, Greenblatt, and the rest of the US team can “prattle on as much as they wish” about their “ominous” peace plan, but that PA Chairman Abbas is the one who decides:

“Mongoloid Greenblatt, together with President Trump, his son-in-law [Senior Advisor to the President of the United States] Jared Kushner, and Zionist [US] Ambassador [to Israel David] Friedman – can prattle on as much as they wish about the ominous deal. However, they should know for certain that without the signature of PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas no deal will pass, and their foolish steps and policy will continue to be pointless.”

While personal attacks on representatives of the US administration by PA officials are not uncommon, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch, this latest attack sets a new low, even for the PA, its representatives, and its mouthpieces.