{"id":138076,"date":"2019-03-05T19:25:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T02:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=138076"},"modified":"2019-03-05T19:25:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T02:25:57","slug":"allegiance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/05\/allegiance.html","title":{"rendered":"Allegiance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve read Rep. Omar’s recent comments about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in American politics and honestly, they only way they can be considered anti-Semitic is if you consider any<\/em> criticism of the government of Israel or American foreign policy toward it to be, per se,<\/em> anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-MN<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“But she’s talking about money! And everyone knows the libel against Jews as fat-cat wealthy people!”<\/em> And, yes, those are pernicious and anti-Semitic stereotypes (ironically garbled from anti-Semitic prejudice that allowed European Jews to lend money at interest, then socially punished them for it).<\/p>\n

But the money flowing into pro-Israeli lobbying coffers and political action committees isn’t just from American Jews. Political and financial support for Israel comes from a substantial chunk of the Christian Right (some of whom see an Israeli state as necessary for the End Times). Other non-Jewish Americans see Israel as a stalwart ally (which could be debated, though in Middle Eastern terms they’re probably better than a lot of the alternatives), or as a representative democracy in region full of autocrats (which makes unwillingness to criticize the actions of that democracy all the more odd), or believe in a Zionist goal of a Jewish homeland given the historically terrible and devastating history of European Jewry that culminated in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

So equating criticism of money spent on behalf of Israeli interests through PACs and lobbying with criticism of wealthy Jews is kind of a stretch,\u00a0unless<\/em> you make it a whole lot clearer that’s what you’re doing.<\/p>\n

I don’t see any of that in Rep. Omar’s statements.<\/p>\n

“But now she’s talking about <\/em>allegiance, and we all know about the pernicious accusation that Jews have a divided loyalty between the nation and other Jews.”<\/em>\u00a0 I’m well familiar with that, including the analogous anti-Catholic prejudice that we seem to have gotten over as a nation.\u00a0And, again, we see the twisted history of a persecuted community ghettoized and forced to band together against prejudice becoming, itself, taken as a “divided loyalty.”<\/p>\n

But, again, Rep. Omar didn’t say that Jews<\/em> were pushing for (or held) an allegiance to a foreign power. She was clearly noting that there are a lot<\/em> of politicians who are so knee-jerk pro-Israel that, regardless of whether it is in American interests or not, they will support Israeli government actions. As might be demonstrated by, well, anyone criticizing Israeli state actions drawing criticism as being anti-Semitic and anti-American and pernicious and deserving of rebuke and punishment.<\/p>\n

Sort of like what’s happening to Rep. Omar.<\/p>\n

One might expect it in politicians and pundits framing everything about Israel as a false dichotomy — you either steadfastly stand behind the Israeli state, no matter what it does, no matter what level of apartheid it enforces, no matter how it deals in bad faith with the Palestinians, no matter how it drags down American relations with other states in the region — or you’re un-American, you’re anti-democracy, you want Israel destroyed, and you’re an anti-Semite.<\/p>\n

Which does, in fact, seem to be the reaction going on. Which makes suggestions that some folk seem have as much allegiance to Israel as to America a rhetorically uncomfortable but not altogether unjust.<\/p>\n

All of which is a ridiculous position to take. We criticize our own\u00a0<\/em>government for its actions … why can we not criticize Israel’s government? We can say that Trump, or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton are dumb or corrupt or destructive or whatever … why can we not criticize Benjamin Netanyahu as vigorously? We can say that the US is doing something wrong … why can we not say that Israel is doing something wrong. We can critique our government’s actions without suggesting that America should be destroyed … why is criticism of Israeli government policy made out to be a desire to see Israel destroyed.<\/p>\n

It’s altogether possible that someone doesn’t think that Israel isn’t acting wrongly in its relations with its neighbors and with the Palestinian Arabs. Fine. But we should be able to have that debate without recourse either to (a) blaming it on the Jews or (b) being accused of blaming it on the Jews.<\/p>\n

But if critical suggestions that a wide array of American supporters (not just Jewish ones) and politicians (ditto) seem to have knee-jerk support for anything that the Israeli government does draw fire as being inherently anti-Semitic … well, I think it merely confirms the suggestions being made.<\/p>\n

Do you want to know more?<\/em><\/p>\n