Fellow neo-Nazis discovered he was Jewish and brutally attacked him.
By World Israel News Staff
A covert Jewish member and former leader of the American Front neo-Nazi group claimed in an interview published Thursday that white supremacists today are more often supporters of President Joe Biden than of his predecessor Donald Trump, despite conventional belief to the contrary.
“I would say a lot of what the world knows about white supremacists nowadays is smoke and mirrors. They’re far more pro-Biden than pro-Trump – Trump was too pro-Israel,” John Daly told the UK’s Jewish News outlet.
Daly, who led the American Front, a Nazi skinhead group active in North Florida during the 1990s, survived a brutal assault after his Jewish heritage was discovered by his fellow group members.
His story was portrayed in the documentary “Escape From Room 18”, which has been broadcast globally and is available on Amazon Prime and YouTube’s Real Stories channel.
Daly joined the group at the age of 15, initially part of an anti-racist subgroup of skinheads that was later infiltrated by the American Front, which he called the “most sinister neo Nazi gangs of the time.” The group’s coercive tactics led by Richard Myers, leader of the Aryan Youth Force, made Daly feel he had no choice but to stay. Daly’s attempt to protect his family led him to a near-death experience after a severe attack by his group members left him with a brain bleed.
After enduring three surgeries and ongoing treatment, Daly testified in court against the group, resulting in long prison terms for multiple leaders of Neo-Nazi groups across the United States. His testimony also marked the end of the American Front and several other major racist networks. He didn’t leave Florida until the court proceedings were concluded, expressing his belief that fleeing would encourage further attacks on Jews.
Daly explains his reluctance to seek help from Jewish organizations or the police during his time in the group, citing the absence of readily available information and the fear of closeted supporters in his community and the police force. He also acknowledged the surprising support for Nazism he encountered from adults in his local park.
In a discussion about current white nationalism and antisemitism in the U.S., Daly mentions the disparity between media portrayals and his understanding of white supremacist groups, which are more than not from the progressive end of the political spectrum.
“There’s a stream of Nazis called ‘The Accelerationists’ who just want to see the world burn,” he told the Jewish News.
“They’re like ‘”We’re gonna take what’s already bad in society, amplify it to the point that there’s enough riots going on that hopefully other white people will say ‘this is bad, the only way to get safety is to join the Nazis’. That’s a very powerful group in America right now.”
According to Daly, antisemitism is fueled by a need to blame others for personal failures, a quest for power, and manipulation of inherent human anger.
“Hate is hate and the end goal remains: to genocide Jews,” he said.
He also criticizes the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for its antisemitic caricatures and its impact on the safety of Jewish students on college campuses.
“The BDS movement uses the exact same caricatures the Nazis used before the Holocaust. We should be as vocal about Islamic antisemitism as white nationalist supremacist antisemitism. There was a survey done of the top 100 universities in the US for Jewish students. Out of those that had BDS (the Palestinian movement that promotes boycotts of Israel) located on campus, 99 percent of Jewish students said they felt unsafe there. Whereas at universities that didn’t have BDS 16 percent didn’t feel safe. That says it all, really.”
Despite the threats from his past, Daly currently resides in Ashkelon, Israel, where he feels the threat of rocket attacks from nearby Gaza is more imminent. In 2014, Daly visited Auschwitz with a former skinhead friend, Kevin, featured in the documentary.
“It was pretty powerful walking through the gates of Auschwitz with someone who has a swastika on their shoulder. He wouldn’t let me hold anything, not even my backpack. He said, ‘no Jew will work in this camp ever again’,” he told the outlet.
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