Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Here are two signature moments from an interview of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chairs the Democratic National Committee, at Hadassah Magazine:
Q. You have visited Israel many times. What memory stays with you from your first visit?
A. I was 27. It was 1995. I went with the American Jewish Committee in a young leadership program. I have always been a part of a large Jewish community, but you are always still aware that you are a minority. I was always aware I was different, and did experience some anti-Semitic incidents. So when I was walking down the street in Jerusalem it suddenly occurred to me that the bus driver is Jewish, the clerk at the supermarket is Jewish and the taxi driver is Jewish….
You cannot make too much of the issue of psychological projection onto Israelis by American Jews. Israeli Jews are doing what we’re not doing. They are laborers, builders, sweepers– and most important, soldiers in a tough neighborhood. Which is why we can never question anything they do; our lives are not on the line. Here we are privileged.
This is from the wonderful memoir, Notebook of a Sixties Lawyer, by Michael Steven Smith of Law and Disorder Radio:
“[A]fter confirmation [in Milwaukee] I went to Israel where I toured and worked on a moschav… over the summer of 1959… It was the first time I had seen working-class Jews.”
Now here’s the headline quote from Debbie Wasserman Schultz:
This helped me fully appreciate how important it is that we have the Jewish State of Israel—which is our homeland and our rightful place. We belong there and, God forbid, I remember thinking, if history repeated itself, there has to be a place for us to go….
Notice how DWS is echoing the Netanyahu language on Israel, the new definition, the Jewish State of Israel. And it’s our rightful place– and wait, you’re one of the most powerful people in America, chair of the Democratic National Committee? I don’t get it. You don’t feel safe in Florida? (This house has got a lot of old wiring. It’s dangerous.)
Until she packs her bags and goes, are we not to assume she considers it her duty to be an Israeli agent?
Even thought she is a politician, DWS may actually believe what she says and not be simply pandering. She will likely be uncomfortable when Peter Beinart starts his book tour on radio and cable TV exposing the American Jewish dilemma. But even DWS will have to choose siding with Netanyahu/ Leiberman (1SS with Jewish supremacy trumping democracy) versus siding with Vilkomerson/ Weiss/ Horowitz/ Blumenthal (1SS with democracy/ equal rights trumping Jewish tribalism). As a American surely she must choose the latter???
“This helped me fully appreciate how important it is that we have the Jewish State of Israel—which is our homeland and our rightful place. ”
This is prima facie evidence of a dual loyalty. Good, bad or indifferent, there is simply no way that a US citizen can say that “we” have another state and that it is “our” homeland and “our” rightful place without there being dual loyalty. Hoppy may moan and cry and fling about the antisemitism libel, but there is simply no other honest way to describe this feeling by a US citizen as other than, at least, a dual loyalty.
Such people should be nowhere near the reins of power in the US.
I think a lot of this “I was aware of being a minority” stuff is code for, “I’m not the White Man” — which nobody wants to be in America; it aint that cool to be “white” – much better to “identify” with some semi mysterious “eastern” tradition that you get to arbitrarily define – it totally lets you off the hook and allows for more decadent wardrobe choices etc. :)
Ive done similar – its all about disassociating yourself from all the white mans misdeeds; “Hey, my people got here in the 20th century, we didnt oppress anyone” or “my people were Irish and Polish, they were oppressed too” — And you can say this kind of nonsense with a straightface until you realize that being white in the states ( like Wasserman Shutlz DEFINITELY is) is the ultimate backstage pass in our society, and if you cant admit that, well – what can I say?
And lets be honest, anti-semitism in America? haha. Take it up with “the jews” in hollywood, who portray Jews as conniving, backstabbing money grubbing hucksters NIGHTLY. Funny that no one ever mentions anti-semitism when it comes to Ari Gold on Entourage, or any episode of Curb your Enthusiasm – or Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder — in fact, if there is any meaningful anti-semitism in American culture, it’s the same industry that is dominated by jewish cats advancing it.
This lady sucks.
She wants to live in a place where everyone shares her values and assumptions. How awful it must be for her to live in America where the plumber next door, despite not having gone to college, may very well make more money than you do. Furthermore he uses his disposable income to go to NASCAR races and boo Michelle Obama.