Anti-Semitism and the accusations agains Representative Ilhan Omar.

Great Debates
201

Jumping in late, here’s my take:

Rep. Omar has said two things that are allegedly anti-Semitic tropes.

  1. The “all about the benjamins” remark. If it had been any other lobby she was talking about, it would have been the ever-popular and mostly true trope about lobbyists buying influence. But it was AIPAC, and yeah, that does make a difference, because the anti-Semitic trope about Jews and money has been around even longer.

That one worked out pretty much as it should have. She realized she needed to be careful not to say things that had a history of being anti-Semitic slurs, she apologized, and her critics by and large gave her the benefit of the doubt as far as intent. Kumbaya and all that.

  1. Then there was her remark that “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

I still need this one explained to me.

I am aware that there is a longstanding trope about Jews being persons of dubious allegiance. In the present day that takes the form of an accusation of divided loyalty between Israel and the country they reside in.

It actually goes well back before the creation of Israel, when Jews were allegedly “rootless cosmopolitans” and the like, without loyalty to any country - like they had much choice, when pogroms forced them from one country to another, resulting eventually in my father’s ancestors finding their way to America.

The part that I’m missing is the part about laws that would force Americans in general - Jew and Gentile alike - to give up a portion of their rights in submission to Israel and its supporters in the U.S. When has that been an anti-Semitic trope? It wasn’t and isn’t, AFAICT; it’s just something that’s happening IRL, right now.

Maybe the use of ‘allegiance’ in place of ‘up a portion of their rights in submission’ in the above phrase is over the top, but the trope is about Jews having dual allegiance, not Gentiles being forced into it. Those are two very different things.

Any help here?

202

She’s said more than two, including this one:

“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

203

I agree with her. Convince me my point of view is based on religion and not the actions of the Israeli government.

204

Well, now we’re up to two and a maybe in seven years.

205

It’s admittedly harsh criticism of Israel, but Israel has done some pretty harsh things.

206

That is NOT what I said and don’t put words in my mouth. People seem to forget the fact that there are sins on BOTH sides. (Hamas IS a legit threat. Likewise, Israel needs to pull out of the West Bank)

Exactly. Which should then exclude things like “Jews hypnotise Congress” or “Those greedy Jews only care about the $$$$!”

207

While your request is certainly reasonable enough, your final paragraph kind of undercuts your moral authority in making it.

208

30 percent of the so-called pro-Israel money is from J Street, which wants to change U.S. foreign policy, towards Israel, in a leftist direction.

I haven’t tried to check the political slant of the other pro-Israel contributors cited by opensecrets.org, but the fact they they generally donate to Democrats at a time when the ruling party of Israel is, to my distress, rather strongly associated with the Republican party in the U.S., tells me that pro-Israel, at OpenSecrets.org, doesn’t mean pro-Israel-foreign-and-military-policy.

This isn’t an attack on OpenSecrets! It would be unreasonable for them to try to categorize that long list of pro-Israel contributors because they have a range of views, right to left.

209

What do you mean by “maybe”?

210

Is that a fair expectation for others to have of you? :dubious:

The conduct, and rights and interests, of the Palestinians are *not *the subject of this thread. Bringing that up is indeed a diversion attempt, and that doesn’t gain you any ground.

Please *quote *any poster, or politician, you see or hear doing so, *then *we can discuss it. Meanwhile, you’re only telling us what you *wish *Rep. Omar had said so you could denounce it properly, aren’t you?

211

The “divided loyalty” (or “disloyalty”) accusation was a tool used by Charles Lindbergh to suggest (most notoriously in his Des Moines speech of 1941) that American Jews were trying to push the U.S. into war to benefit their Jewish brethren abroad.

This anti-Semitic trope been used across the political spectrum.

"Bashing Jews for their supposed disloyalty to their nation is a crude maneuver that has been employed long before Israel existed. It has been a tactic of both the far-left and far-right, almost as though haters from both extremes come together on the dark side of the moon.

Even the Pentagon seems to have gotten into the act, as in this bizarre example.

212

Evidently in your post #202, you responded to my post #201 without taking the trouble to read it. What I mean by that is fully explained there.

213

Wow. Self-own by AIPAC, then.

Because they (and white evangelicals too, but here that’s beside the point) are pushing for anti-BDS laws to benefit their Jewish brethren abroad.

This is not a meme, this is not a trope. This is what they’re actually doing, in perfect parallelism to what Lindbergh (who unquestionably was an anti-Semite) accused them of back in 1941.

214

First noting that I do not support anti-BDS laws, in what mental universe do you see them as an attempt to draw the U.S. into war to benefit foreigners (which is what Lindbergh was making accusations about)?

Also, using your criteria one could easily describe those promoting BDS policies as exhibiting a “dual (or divided) loyalty” towards and for the benefit of a foreign entity (which in this case is largely hostile towards America).

However, supporting or opposing BDS cannot be rationally described as demonstrating questionable loyalty.

Lots of people have views on foreign policy regarding a variety of nations (policies which can be debated as helping or harming American interests) without getting slammed as disloyal. An exclusive (or near-exclusive) focus on Israel in this regard has a bad odor.

215

I’ll keep that in mind when russians can vote in the US elections.

I am anti-russian expansion, anti-russian aggression, I am for anti-russian cyber security, and anti-russian election protection.

I am still not against the people of russia, I am only against the actual actions that the Russian govt is taking.

Not sure how that follows. You say that you are against what the govt is doing, then you say that you are not against what the govt is doing, then you say you are for what the govt is doing.

If people in any country choose to take a stance that being against the actions of their govt is the same as being against the people of that country, then there is little we can do about that. People don’t take criticism well, and often try to change that criticism into a flaw on the part of the critic, and feign outrage at their “misunderstanding” as to what the criticism is actually about. It is simply a way of preventing uncomfortable criticism.

I hadn’t actually even heard of that until this incident. If you had said “Jewish hypnosis” a week ago, I would have thought that it was a poorly named stage act.

I can see how you can use this context to show that her words were poorly chosen, but I still don’t see you can show that it was meant that way. Greed is greed, and the fact that historically jews have been accused of being greedy should not mean that you cannot accuse anyone of being greedy because it is in the context of Israel relations.

Seem to be? I’m not anti-JEWISH or anti-ZIONIST, but I am against some of the actions that they have taken in regard to palestine, and I am also against legislators representing anyone because of the money of their lobbying organization, rather than the interests of their constituents.

How would you express that, in this context, without running afoul of anything that could possibly be linked to some historical stereotype and therefore be accused of being anti-semitic?

No, but who has said that? Israel doesn’t have a right to the West Bank or Gaza Strip is not the same as Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. Israel not having the right to use collective punishment, and use indiscriminate bombing of palestinian civilians in return for acts of terror against their citizens is not saying that Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself.

Criticism of Israel is not being an anti-Zionist or anti-semitic. I criticize the US govt all the time, I think that our govt and agents of our government occasionally do some pretty terrible things, and would really like them to stop doing so. That doesn’t mean that I hate America or the American people. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think that the US has a right to exist.

I’m sure there are a lot of people that feel that way, but are any of them the ones that are in this thread or are subjects thereof?

216

How does that even work? Do I have to turn in receipts from pro-Israel business to prove that I am frequenting them enough? What is the punishment if I don’t meet my quota?

And when was that? Was that as a representative?

217

I should have specified that I wasn’t speaking of Elvis in particular, or really anyone here. I apologize for that.

I wasn’t bringing up Palestine for any “diversion”, hell I wasn’t even the first one to bring it up! It’s linked because it has a lot to do with Omar’s position on Israel.

As for what I WISH she had said?
“All about the Benjamins, baby.”

“Israel has hypnotized the world,” (Sorry, the world not Congress. But c’mon here.)

-Both of which were said by Omar.

218

I would attribute any slight confusion in the meaning there to speaking off the cuff, AFAIK it’s a quote from an audio of an apparently extemporaneous talk. The meaning most people reasonably took was simply ‘dual allegiance by Jews’. Although technically one could interpret it as people of various faiths promoting ‘allegiance’ to Israel or forcing others’ ‘allegiance’ to Israel. But even the latter interpretation wouldn’t be entirely at odds with a traditional anti-Semitic trope: an accusations that Jews force the US body politic as a whole to have a subservient relationship to Israel via the Jews’ ‘benjamins’ and ‘excessive influence’ in general.

If somebody without the same history made that one remark indeed others might be more willing to say ‘huh, what do you mean by that exactly?’ But with Rep Omar there is a history.

And that particular statement has zero to do with criticizing Israel, as do her other most criticized statements. She happens to be critical of the govt (at least) of Israel. But statements of hers in the vein of the one quoted are more heavily criticized because they are clearly not about Israeli policy, but the supposed excessive influence and/or dual loyalty of American Jews.

Omar isn’t just critical of Israeli govt policy. She’s anti-Israel, pretty obsessed with it (nothing like equal time for all the various wrongs of other govts overseas) and it seems reasonable to infer based on a series of incidents at least somewhat of an anti-Semite. Say at the level at which Pat Buchanan was dubbed a ‘constructive anti-Semite’ in a piece by William F. Buckley. The people of her district can elect whom they choose. And the Democratic Party can accommodate that choice and this Rep. how they choose. But it’s more hypocritical IMO to try to defend her using arguments that would be laughed off if the speaker were on the right than to just admit, a high degree of anti-Israeli govt feeling even if it crosses over into anti-Israel feeling or further into constructive antisemitism (things which can be different, but not necessarily, and statements like this suggest Omar is all three) is now part of the Democratic ‘big tent’.

219

I try to look at this issue (and all issues relating to Israel) from the perspective of both sides. I really do. Here’s how it breaks down for me:

  1. On one hand, pretty much all Jews in America are only one or two generations removed from the Holocaust. It’s impossible to separate the issue of Israel from the Holocaust, in a “big picture” sense. The Holocaust was the culmination of a very long history of persecution, and it happened in living memory. There was a gigantic orgy of death and destruction, and peoples’ collective cultural memory of it is still vivid, thanks to the endless photos that virtually everyone in America grows up seeing.

Millions of human beings were just sent to die - all their accomplishments and aspirations and identities completely disregarded, tossed aside…some of them were highly educated and successful scholars and scientists, some of them were decorated war heroes who had fought and bled for what they thought was their country in WWI, some of them were great musicians or artists, some of them were just average people of modest means, some were poor peasants, old men, young children…and they all shared the same fate: being treated like nothing. Nothing about who they did or who they were made any difference, they were all stripped naked, starved, and mechanically killed in the same method that people use to kill insects. How do you think the experience of all of this collectively traumatized a culture? The answer is, a lot. When that culture gets a piece of territory they can call their own - and we can endlessly debate the circumstances under which they got that territory - ONE place in the world where they know that they will NOT suffer that same fate again - they are going to be fiercely protective of it. Why wouldn’t they? It’s just common sense, right?

  1. On the other hand, everyone in the world is only a few generations away from people who suffered. Why should Israel get treated with kid gloves? Why is it that when Israel causes people to suffer, it’s so goddamn hard to call them out without being accused of bigotry against Jews? Israel receives a colossal amount of money from the United States - this is a country that’s supposedly a first-world nation and a scientific powerhouse that is constantly developing innovative technology, why do they need billions and billions of dollars given to them by the United States? They have, for decades now, continued an occupation of Palestinians - which includes not only Muslims but also Christians - with an “out of sight, out of mind” approach, basically just building a giant wall and saying “fuck everyone on the other side.” If you have Jewish friends on Facebook, you’ve probably seen pictures of young American Jews taking trips to Israel, partying and camping and riding camels and doing all this fun touristy shit, while on the other side of that wall, people are living in complete misery. How can that not seem disturbing?

In my opinion, which I realize doesn’t count for very much, I think the concept of founding Israel was a good idea, but it should have been founded somewhere else. Almost ANYWHERE else, actually. Israel is a small country. A territory of that size could probably have been carved out of existing land in another area of the world that was not 1. already occupied by other people, and 2. surrounded by hostile nations. There was a lot of uninhabited land at the time that Israel was created. The same way the British set aside the Mandate of Palestine, they could have presumably done the same thing somewhere else (Australia?)

But there’s no point in dwelling on what COULD have been. The fact is, Israel exists, where it is, right NOW, and it’s not going anywhere. So how do we discuss it, as it pertains to politics, with the greatest likelihood of 1. not pissing off lots of Jews, and 2. actually achieving something resembling progress?

My own opinion (again, not counting for much) :

  1. Avoid use of the word “Zionist.” It flat out IS used as an anti-Semitic dog whistle a lot. Zionism was a political movement that originated in the late 19th century. As an ideology it has little relation to current day Jews and Israelis. The word “Zionist” just sounds antiquated and outdated to me, like “Mohammedan” or “Oriental.”

  2. Spin the foreign-aid issue as “Israel shouldn’t need to be dependent on the US, they’re a solid country and can stand on their own”. I’m not saying that ALL money to Israel should be shut off - America gives money to a lot of other countries - but the amount could be reduced incrementally. And instead of making it seem like a punitive measure, it could be spun as “helping them help themselves” - shit, isn’t that what America is supposed to be all about?

220

I think this is wrong for the right reasons - fundamentally the problem is that for most populated parts of the world, there are far more ethnic groups than states. Supposedly there are over a hundred ethnic groups in Myanmar, for example. If you try to give a state to every ethnic group, you either balkanize the world and create even more situations where people can no longer move around in areas they are used to doing so, or about 1000 ethnic groups have to all agree to move to Siberia (or Australia).

In the case of Jews post-WWII, Palestine was a place that had a significant Jewish population already, many Jews were migrating to Palestine, and it was a British territorial holding so they had a lot of reign to do what they wanted with it. One of the biggest mistakes the Brits made was promising it to both Jews and Arabs. Obviously the religious significance both created a stronger motivation for Jews to move there, and caused Muslims to view it as something they weren’t going to compromise on.

I strongly agree with this. I sort of understand not recognizing a state you feel was established illegitimately, but several generations onward when almost the entire country was born after it’s founding, Arab states and pro-Palestinian groups really need to accept reality, recognize Israel as a state and not call for it’s destruction.

The problem here is that Zionism is an actual ideology, and it is one of the reasons for Israel’s settlement policy, and some of Israel’s policies concerning religion. It’s used by some people as a code word for Jew, but if the word was no longer used we would need another word for “Believers in establishing Eretz Ysrael”.

I generally agree with this, although it clearly has a political motivation besides just “Israel should stand on it’s own.” I think people would see through that and still debate all the political questions underlying this type of decision.