Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner on Wednesday defended his decision to flag a resident’s critical Facebook comment about him and denied directing police to knock on the resident’s door, his first public comments about the controversy since email records revealed that he had sent the comment to the city’s police chief.
Speaking to reporters after his State of the City address, Meiner said the Facebook comment, which claimed that he “consistently calls for the death of all Palestinians,” was “age-old antisemitism.”
“This type of post is literally antisemitism 101,” Meiner said. “You say that Jews are trying to commit violence, so basically what’s inferred is you need to commit violence against Jews.”
Meiner said someone forwarded him the comment by Raquel Pacheco, who was responding to a post in which Meiner touted Miami Beach as a “safe haven for everyone” and criticized policies in New York City.
Read the full story at MiamiHerald.com.
