Andy, I only knew that Omar tweet even existed because you linked to it as support of your position that she wasn’t talking about Obama. No one here bought that claim, and after a bunch of people on Twitter pointed out that she was being extremely disingenuous, she deleted the tweet in question. But now you’re trying to say that has nothing to do with you and your argument? :dubious: Again, time to cue the Willy Wonka meme.
DSeid, nothing mindless about it.
Elucidator, your contemptuous and erroneous implication that there are no left wingers in Fargo-Moorhead is noted. Try looking at the website for the alt-weekly High Plains Reader, amazingly distributed for free in most restaurants and retail stores here, and open your horizons. There is a long-standing tradition here of prairie populism, farmer grain cooperatives, etc.; and F-M is thick with educated Millennials thanks to the several universities, the Microsoft campus, and the burgeoning tech sector more broadly. This is not your (or anyone’s) grandfather’s Fargo.
Missed the edit window.
HPR link: https://hpr1.com
Also, the School Board candidate my wife and I voted for is openly a member of the DSA; she won the election handily.
Enjoy taking down your straw men.
So much for giving the benefit of the doubt.
Okay. Corrected:
It informs when someone who with intent calls upon a historic anti-Semitic slur does not mind that use of the tropes emboldens overt anti-Semitism.
:rolleyes:
I agree with you that it would be horrific if left-wing anti-Semitism became normalized in the US to the extent that it has in the UK. But I also agree with the author of the Vox article you linked that the slope between Omar, who has apologized and met with Jewish leaders to educate herself on the issue, and people who explicitly praise Hitler is really quite long indeed. It was correct for Omar to be called out on it, but refusing to accept her apology at this point only serves the interest of the party which really is mainstreaming anti- Semitism.
Well there are two separate but overlapping issues.
-
The adequacy of her apologies (inclusive of part 2).
-
The position of several posters here (using phrases like “cunning” and “dual loyalty”, phrases that come directly from the longstanding slurs) that she had nothing to apologize for, what tropes?, Jews are these things and just “cry trope” to shut down criticisms.
As to the first, her initial apology was fine and I was satisfied. She is a rookie being given multiple close-ups under very bright lights and a few missteps can be forgiven. It was the part two in which she retreated to a defense that the problem was that people were offended, not with what she said, that bothered me. But that bother is an eye roll level bother. She needs to learn when to stop talking but apologizing with retreating into a self-defense of what your excuse is or trying minimize your offense is hard. Again, been married a long time and still learning! I can easily cut a rookie placed under this much spotlight glare some extra slack so long as it is recognized that such is what is being done.
The second, the position of several posters here that no apology was needed, and their (again at best mindless or driven by implicit stereotypes they hold unawares, but now clarified by one as with intent, not mindless at all) use of the words and concepts with many many centuries of history justifying many atrocities … that is the part that has disturbed me much more.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says that it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”
That’s a fairly common viewpoint of many progressives, especially relating to many of the politicians in Washington and state capitals across the nation - over half of the states have passed laws that punish businesses that boycott Israeli or Israeli-owned companies.
Does it possibly touch on an anti-Semitic topic? Sure. Is it being blown out of proportion by politicians who unquestioningly support Israel while ignoring large amounts of human rights abuses and other wrongdoings? Absolutely.
SlackerInc et al has happily done the Republican’s work of portraying any criticism of Israel or its blindfolded supporters in Washington as anti-Semitic, and it’s disgusting. Though, not surprising, given his repeated statements of bigotry against Muslims.
Talking about specific Jewish people involved politics, and issues related to Israel right now is dicey precisely because of the very real anti-Semitic scaremongering used against them for centuries. Money in Politics is a super, super hot-button issue right now, especially among Omar’s part of the wing (see: AOC’s “I’m a really bad guy” ploy), and the intersection of that issue with issues regarding Israel can be legitimately hard to disentagle between intentional anti-semitism, unintentionally playing into anti-semitic sentiment, and an unbiased as reasonably possible application of the “money in politics” critique to the sphere of US-Israeli politics (and/or accusations of corruption against a specific Jewish politician).
Meanwhile, America does have unusually strong ties with Israel, and questioning that is valid and necessary with the whole mess going on with Palestine, but again, it’s legitimately hard to disentangle criticism of that with anti-semitism. Personally, I’d place the blame more on the glut of Premillenial Dispensationalist rapture Christians in Congress who are basically a death cult that believe the Temple of David needs to be reconstructed for The Second Coming and Judgment Day to happen before I’d put it on most any Jewish person or PAC. That said, I think it takes a lot of care, self examination, and extremely well thought out wording before you make the critique of any Jewish influencers or politicians just because of the history.
It’s unfortunate, but when you have an event under 100 years ago that used near-identical ideas as an excuse to literally exterminate people, followed by a resurgence of people shouting “Jews will not replace us” in a park in Virginia just a couple years ago it maybe pays to take an extra bit of care that Omar certainly did not. It’s not really a situation where you can make pithy or glib statements like “all about the Benjamins” because the wording and analysis needs to be very careful and considered.
Chisquirrel and Jragon, your comments are appreciated.
I want to emphasize that criticism of American policy to Israel and differences of opinion regarding it are completely fair game and it is actually not all that difficult to express those ideas without glibly using the same language as the standard anti-Semitic tropes.
Let’s use the issue of “laws that punish businesses that boycott Israeli or Israeli-owned companies.” This has nothing to do with requiring anyone to have “allegiance to a foreign power”; it has everything to do with freedom of expression. My not boycotting Canadian-owned companies does not imply that I have any allegiance to Canada and if I wanted to participate in such a boycott, over some ignorant take on a trade issue say, or even based on some stereotype like they are too nice, I would be allowed to. If someone thought my action was based on stereotyped biases they might argue against my action but no one would be accusing those people of demanding my allegiance to Canada. Allegiance has nothing to do with it.
The use of the word “allegiance” to describe what is a freedom of expression issue is a result of those classic anti-Semitic tapes playing unconsciously and would not be used if not for them. And its needless and completely inaccurate use directly references them even if without conscious intent, thereby normalizing and reinforcing expression of those hateful stereotypes by all sides.
Forcing businesses to trade with Israel isn’t the “allegiance”. It’s the politicians writing and supporting those laws that are being accused of having allegiance to a foreign power.
While Omar is being used in anti-Muslim propaganda by state GOP parties and accused of not being loyal to the Constitution because she wears a hijab, don’t expect me to be agree with Gentile Israel supporters getting all heated because someone called them on their shit.
No one is "Forcing businesses to trade with Israel ".
I am not a Gentile. I am a Jewish American who condemns anti-Muslim propaganda and stereotypes strongly.
Please tell me other times that people who advocate for American policy support of another country are accused of having “dual loyalty” or “allegiance” to that country? Are politicians who advocated for a “Free Tibet” with no specific interest in America’s best interests acting with allegiance to the Dali Lama?
Well the other group may be Muslims, accused of having loyalty to the Koran. Pretty awful I would say. Wouldn’t you? But it is okay to imply that about Jews?
Why do you think that a word/concept that is associated with such a long hateful history is used in this specific context and can you understand why both why it offends and why the conversation can be more productive if its use was avoided?
What do you call punishing businesses that boycott Israel? No one’s forcing you to let your annoying neighbor live, either.
No one is implying that, other than politicians NOT named Ilhan Omar. We’re not talking about policy support, we’re talking about blind adherence to unconditional aid to a regime that routinely commits human rights abuses. It’s not American Jews or Israeli Jews or Russian Jews or Polish Jews or Indian Jews. It’s the actions taken by the government of Israel and the continuing support in the face of those actions by the US and various state governments.
As for her the words she used, that’s been asked, answered, and will hereby be ignored.
What the fuck? 
Cite?
What the fuck? Cite?
Sure, but they have an unholy alliance with militant right wing Jews like Sheldon Adelson.
That’s right. Omar, in her public utterances so far, has (regrettably) emulated Donald Trump in seeming to be unable to criticize anyone without personally insulting them, too.
She could have said ‘I disagree with Obama’s policy on drone strikes, and believe we should examine and highlight the problems with that policy to avoid making the same mistake in the future.’ But instead she said
Which at least implies that Obama is, basically, a reprehensible person—polished and possessed of a pretty face, which lets him get away with literal murder.
This is very Trump-like. It’s not just that the opponent has policies with which the speaker disagrees; it’s that the opponent is an awful person.
Similarly with Omar’s comments about Americans who support Israel, and/or American Jews. She doesn’t just say that she questions the policy of supporting the current Israeli government—she says that Americans who do support it are “all about the Benjamins” and have “allegiance to a foreign country.”* She can’t just say that she disagrees with those people—she has to say that they are money-grubbing, manipulative, and unpatriotic.
And that’s personally insulting, of course. Moreover, it’s personally insulting by means of old, ugly tropes.
Again: very Trump-like.
She hasn’t done anything in several days to make headlines. Maybe she thought better of that sort of conduct. Or maybe Pelosi privately laid down the law: throw any more bombs and you will not get committee assignments you want.
In any case, her past comments worry me as a trend that may be growing: ‘counter your opponents not by explaining your policy differences, but by underhanded, nasty personal insults.’ We don’t need more Trumps. We really, really do not.
*Ilhan Omar “allegiance” comments (transcript) | by wideofthepost | Medium
Wow does this strike me as hyperbolic nonsense (i.e. probably exactly what the hack-rag Politico intended to be the interpretation). The only time she actually named Obama, AFAICT by carefully reading every one of her quotes, it was to (quite reasonably) criticize some of his drone and immigration policies. I saw nothing close to calling him “reprehensible”. She was very careful to qualify her criticism of the system with “many of the people that came before him also had really bad policies…”, not “all” or Obama in particular.
I still see this as an attempt at a nuanced criticism of the system overall, and how broken it is, and that Obama wasn’t entirely perfect, rather than anything close to a personal attack on Obama.
“Very Trump-like”? Harmful, hyperbolic bullshit. Not even close. Not even in the same fucking galaxy. Nuanced criticism is okay. Dialogue like this is good. If Democrats are going to jump all over someone new who attempts a good-faith effort at some nuanced criticism of the system in general, and saying that even well-meaning Democrats have failed to overcome its weaknesses, then progress will be even harder.
As for her comments on Israel, I think some of them were indeed using anti-semitic tropes (whether intentional or not), and are worthy of criticism (the good, nuanced criticism; not the blanket silly bullshit mostly coming from the right, or some Democrats who have said that it’s unacceptable to question anything about the US-Israeli relationship and Israeli policies).
So if some American says that God himself has decreed Israel’s existence as his will, what’s the preferred term rather thn “dual loyalty”?