Former Anti-Defamation League director calls Donald Trump hand-raising an intentionally 'fascist gesture'

Former Anti-Defamation League Director Abe Foxman slammed Donald Trump for having supporters at a rally Saturday raise their right hands in an intentionally "fascist gesture."

"He is smart enough — he always tells us how smart he is — to know the images that this evokes," Foxman told The Times of Israel. "Instead of asking his audience to pledge allegiance to the United States of America, which in itself would be a little bizarre, he's asking them to swear allegiance to him."

Trump asked supporters at the Orlando, Florida, rally to swear they'd vote for him in the upcoming primary.

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"You swore," the Republican frontrunner told the crowd. "Bad things happen if you don't live up to what you just did."

Foxman didn't mince words in relaying the imagery Trump's scene recreated for him.

“As a Jew who survived the Holocaust," he said, "to see an audience of thousands of people raising their hands in what looks like the 'Heil Hitler' salute is about as offensive, obnoxious, and disgusting as anything I thought I would ever witness in the United States of America."