"It's all about the Benjamins, baby" -- anti-Semitic?

In My Humble Opinion
21

But that’s still just being anti-Israel. Believing Israel doesn’t deserve to exist is still just about the country, not about the people.

The word “hypnotizes” is the problem, AFAIK, because it sounds like a dogwhistle for antisemitism, as it references old stereotypes about Jewish people being able to use magic to control people.

But it could also be that type of unintentional racism that comes from cultural baggage, where you don’t intend to be racist, but you still have leftover implications. What she said could just be problematic.

What I do note is that this is the right wing demanding someone on the left be PC, and worry about exactly how she says things. Could it be that being PC only matters when it’s about people the right cares about?

22

Well, yes and no.

It’s interesting that Israel is just about the only country in the world people say shouldn’t exist. It’s also the only Jewish-majority country. Correlation does not imply causation, obviously, but it’s still troubling. Why is Israel singled out for cancellation?

Also, what does “cease to exist” mean? If you’re saying that Israel should change its laws and maybe it’s name, then OK. We won’t agree, but at least we can have a civilized discussion. If you’re saying that a sovereign state, a UN member, should be dissolved or subsumed into another, that’s a much bigger problem. And if you’re saying that the Jewish population of Israel should be removed… *can *you advocate the exile or murder of millions of Jews without being an anti-Semite? If someone suggested doing that to the Palestinians, would you not accuse them of racism against Arabs? Because I know I would, and I have.

23

I’m continually amazed at the amount of insane online nutters who proudly spout Jewish-led conspiracy theories (often involving obscure code words such as: “Globalists,” “bankers,” “Cultural Marxists,” etc). Whatever your political goals are, regarding comments on Israel/the middle east, anti-Semitic nutters do exist and you mustn’t feed these trolls with dog-whistles. This is especially true if you have no desire to whistle, but just want share a message that’s clear and personally important to you.

But what do I know? To this left-ish Canadian it seems that the vast chunk of the American right could open up a full stereotype laden/race-baiting/dog-whistling symphony orchestra. How your politics are run never fails to amaze me.

24

The notions that Jews are rich and use their wealth to buy influence and favors has been around for centuries and what makes it toxic is that that meme has been used to oppress and abuse Jews in general - most of whom are and have been of modest means or even outright poor. It was used to justify additional taxes or outright taking of stuff. Russia, and later the USSR, were infamous for stripping anything of value from departing Jews, as just one example, to the extent of slitting the hems of clothing to look for anything that might be hidden there, and it was justified because Jews “stole” that wealth or had so much money they didn’t deserve.

Not as you expressed it there, but you were clear you were referring to Israel and current elements in there. You didn’t lump all Jews together as supporters of that policy. That’s a key difference.

If a Christian used the exact same words it would have been just as offensive.

25

It’s not just the right – antisemitism seems to be on the rise on the left as well. Omar, for example, is a leftist politician.

26

Well the first part was directed at Omar/the left and the second part was just a quick comment on how toxic the modern America ring-wing is to this Canadian.

27

Not all criticism…just a lot of it.
It’s often a very fine line that defines the boundary between legitimate criticism and illegitimate antisemitism.

The neighboring countries surrounding Israel are all antisemitic, and some of them are extremely violently and proudly antisemitic.
Too many of the people who criticize Israel also offer support to the neighboring countries…and ignore the fact that by doing so they are openly supporting antisemitic jihadists.

So yes, much of the criticism of Israel IS antisemitic–because if the critics succeed in their goals, the result will be a lot of dead Jews. (and a country being wiped off the map. )
When the stakes are that high, it’s difficult to put up with too much criticism, even when it comes well-intentioned. See Alessan’s post #22.
[And now, make a lot of popcorn and find a really comfortable seat for a long show… the move to GD is coming up] :slight_smile:

28

You mention that the “hypnotised” is an ‘example.’ In fact your source shows a total of two (2) alleged anti-Semitic quotes by Ms. Omar; the “hypnotised” quote and the one in thread title. It also shows the following quote by Ms. Omar:
“I don’t know how my comments would be offensive to Jewish Americans. My comments precisely are addressing what was happening during the Gaza War and I’m clearly speaking about the way the Israeli regime was conducting itself in that war.”

Did Ms. Omar say Israel doesn’t deserve to exist?

Or is this the syllogism:
(a) Some people who criticise Israel don’t think it should exist.
(b) Ms. Omar criticised Israel.
(c) Therefore Ms. Omar doesn’t think Israel should exist.

***Did Ms. Omar lump all Jews together?

Let me see if I understand: Because of a centuries-old meme that associates Jews with money, it is now taboo to ever accuse Israel of misusing money. Is that about it?

You don’t have to convince me that there are anti-Semites about. I’ve drunk beer with ex-pat Brits and it almost seems that a majority are Jew-haters. (I asked one why he hated Jews; his answer: “They’ve been hated for thousands of years; there must be something wrong with them.”) But I see no evidence that Ms. Omar is a Jew-hater.

Making it off-limits to question Israel’s inhumane policies against Palestinians is “political correctness” run amok. I don’t think this would have gotten any traction except that Ms. Omar is (a) a Democrat, (b) a Muslim and possibly (c) she quoted a rap song. :eek:

29

Nope, not quite.

Here’s the difference:

Acceptable:
"The current administration in Israel is mis-using money and attempting to influence the politics and government of another country.

Unacceptable:
“Jews use their money to control government X”
“Jews have too much control over government X, and it’s all about the Benjamins”

Acceptable:
“AIPAC is a lobbying group unduly influenced by Israel and American Jews that support the current Israeli administration and their actions, many of which I find objectionable for reasons X, Y, and Z.”

Unacceptable:
“AIPAC is funded by Jewish money both from Israel and American Jews to advance the Jewish agenda to the detriment of the rest of us.”

The acceptable phrasing makes it clear you are criticizing a current government (which, given it’s an at least nominally democratic country, can be changed by future elections) and not everyone of a particular ethnicity or religion.

The unacceptable forms presume guilt by association and lump everyone of a particular religion/ethnicity all together as one monolithic block, which is what makes it bigotry.

I tend to agree with that - I think Ms Omar probably hasn’t know many Jews (or Israelis, which are not always Jewish) and comes from a background with a lot of both conscious and unconscious anti-Semitism which makes it really easy for unintentional mis-steps to occur.

This is rather like how a lot of white people are completely unaware of racist versions of “eeiny-meeiny-mieny-moo”, or what a prior name for “Brazil nuts” was. This leads to unintentional offense which, despite being unintentional, can be deeply hurtful. Which is why we, as a society, need to learn to speak of these things in a way that does NOT lead to shouting and infighting so we can move to eliminate the cultural baggage and ignorance that leads to giving offense.

Which battle is exhausting - one of the annoying things about living in the area I do is that there are a couple of very offensive phrases people use without thought because they’ve heard/used them all their lives and have no clue how offensive they are. One of my current good friends unintentionally used one that comes across as anti-Semitic and I mentioned that to her - she apologized and said she had no idea that it was a problem. I said I realized that, which is why I mentioned it to her in a non-confrontational manner because I knew from the rest of her actions towards me that she is NOT anti-Semitic. She just never had reason to question a phrase that, like “gypted” or “welsh on a deal”, can be offensive to a particular group but is so ubiquitous that most people using it don’t really hear what they’re saying.

Agreed. In fact, I think it is a topic that very much needs to be dragged out into the open and thoroughly examined. So long as Palestinian positions that would be inhumane towards others are also examined thorough. Really, it’s a mess and the whole situation needs to be dissected and examined in the clear light of day before we have any hope of resolving it. Both sides are dirty as hell and need to make real changes in how they conduct themselves.

None of that helped.

That said - despite the offense I found in her remarks I am able to look past that to acknowledge that there is some truth in what she says. It’s just that the manner in which she said it did nothing to help her cause and gave her enemies a way to use it against her. That is how politics is done (and always has been). New politicians often run aground because navigating the shoals of words and dog-whistles is tricky stuff and requires time and experience to learn.

30

That is so NOT what I said. Please do not put words in my mouth.

No.

Nobody said it’s off-limits. Seriously, we’re knee deep in straw here.

31

In your examples, it is acceptable to criticize a particular Israeli government, but not to cast general aspersions on Jews.

When did Ms. Omar even use a word like “Jew” or “Jewish”? A page was submitted up-thread as “evidence” of Ms. Omar’s anti-Semitism. I’ve confirmed with Firefox’s Search facility that the letters J-e-w occur in that order only ONCE (1 time) in any quote by Ms. Omar cited on that page. Here it is:

32

It is very strange to argue that her comments were not anti-Semitic when she said in her own words that she wasn’t aware of how hurtful her comments were in the context of anti-Semitic tropes.

33

But Omar never used any of the ‘unacceptable’ phrases. Is the contention that claiming that lobby money is used to influence Israeli politics was unacceptable because she wasn’t specific enough in the first tweet that it was AIPAC that she was criticizing? Because a lot of people got really mad when she was asked to clarify who has the benjamins and she named AIPAC. Is the issue one of being not specific enough when quoting a song lyric?

34

People apologize all the time for things they don’t think were out of line, but others felt was hurtful. Helps And, as I pointed out before, this especially happens with politicians. Perhaps maybe she’ll be more specific next time (and in her apology she does indeed call out lobbying by AIPAC - which has led some to say that it wasn’t a real apology).

And of course, one does not have to agree with how a person understands their own words.

35

That is correct.

And I stress that my examples were just that - EXAMPLES - and not intended of direct quotes of anyone. I was trying to speak in general and not specific terms.

As I do not have a Twitter account and I’m not even sure how to access a particular Tweet I stuck to generalities rather than specifics. If someone could provide a complete and unedited quote of the allegedly offending tweets I might be willing to be more specific.

Again, they are examples and not an exhaustive listing of all possible unacceptable/offensive phrases.

I think it would have been better if she was specific from the start that she was criticizing AIPAC. Some people would still have gotten upset, of course, because there are some ardent AIPAC supporters, just as there are some ardent Palestinian/Hamas/whatever-other-group-you-care-to-name supporters. It’s impossible to discuss political, religious, social, or financial issues without offending someone.

36

The situation of Israel is unusual in that its territory is entirely claimed by somebody else, deadly seriously, recently and continuously*. However I still wouldn’t even say ‘yes and no’. There is too little daylight between believing Israel should not exist and being antisemitic in the real practical world to waste much effort trying to distinguish those two things. It’s logically possible to believe the first and not be the second, but that’s a negligibly rare POV in practice. It’s entirely reasonable in general to assume that people calling for an end to the Jewish State are anti-Jewish.

*this is different than rhetorical flourishes saying for example the US, Canada, Australia etc should be given back to the aboriginal peoples there. That’s not to say those people have no valid complaint, but literal expulsion of the Europeans is not a serious prospect.

37

:dubious:

38

Again, her apology looked quite sincere, as it related the words she said to the harm that she often suffers from other people’s words about her. Just because you want to think that her apology was insincere, I don’t think that’s the most plain reading of it. Had she written something different, like maybe “I’ve been misunderstood, you’re attacking me because of my beliefs, but I’m sorry if someone was offended” then yeah, I could see that as not being an actual apology. But that’s really not what she said.

39

I would like to elaborate on my earlier statement. The problem with her tweets is that she is reducing extremely complex issues to ‘they’re being paid off.’ This attitude largely is the attitude of anti-Semitic groups and feeds directly into their conspiracy narrative. AIPAC is often seen as a stand-in for ‘Jews’ in general among these conspiracy groups. It feeds those people. At its very, very best, she displays an incredible ignorance. American-Israeli relations have an extremely long and storied past that has led us to our current point. If AIPAC folded tomorrow, politicians aren’t going to start not supporting Israel. At this point, AIPAC is largely extraneous to the conversation. As an elected official, she really should know that. Saying that various politicians pursue pro-Israel policies because they’re getting money under the table is completely ignoring the political realities of the relationship. It’s a reductive way of viewing politics that might sit well with the uninformed as a convenient narrative, but it is not truth (Anymore than the fiction that it’s the NRA that is somehow controlling pro-gun politicians.) The fact that this particular reduction is the same reduction that hate groups make makes it egregious. It is trafficking in conspiracy theory where no conspiracy is required - which is exactly what anti-Semitic groups that are saying the same thing are doing. The fact that the most notable person defending her tweets is David Duke probably tells us something about them. When you reduce the issue to ‘evil group (in this case Jews via AIPAC) is paying off politicians in order to oppress people’ it’s pretty easy to see why she needs called out. The most troubling thing about it is that she actually followed up on her original tweet. This tells you that she truly is engaged with these conspiracies and it wasn’t simply a thoughtless blunder. That’s not something that we should accept from our politicians.

40

This was already done to the Palestinians. See the 1948 Palestinian exodus; people were driven from their homes or left because or the partitioning.