The spontaneous eruption on social media assaulting Chuck Schumer’s decision to reject what many Americans consider to be, potentially, the greatest diplomatic feat in US foreign policy since Nixon’s ’72 trip to China, and potentially the pinnacle of Obama’s presidential legacy — the Iran Deal — has ticked off editors at Tablet Magazine. Tablet says that supporters of the deal are resorting to bigoted appeals.
“Crossing a Line to Sell a Deal” is a cornucopia of accusatory rhetoric in an attempt to paint a big thick red line around words no one is allowed to say in US politics because they’re — anti-Semitic. Those words include
Murmuring about “money” and “lobbying” and “foreign interests”
Obama, Tablet says, is raising dual loyalty accusations, the “dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white power rally.”
Sorry, I don’t buy it. If lobbyists are spending 40 million dollars in the next 2 months flagellating the public (and Congress members) with propaganda against the Iran Deal– with the result that polling numbers on the Iran deal are actually changing in the negative direction– don’t expect people who support the deal to fight for it without identifying the real opponent, “lobby” and “money” and “Israel”.
If a rightwing Prime Minister gets invited into Congress to submarine our president’s policy and the New York Times says that Democrats are torn between their “loyalty to the Jewish state” and their support for Obama, I have a right to talk about where their loyalty should lie. If Bill Kristol of the Emergency Committee for Israel responds to Obama’s statement that Israel is the only country publicly to oppose the pact by saying, “All the greater Israel’s glory,” well, I have a right to say that deal opponents care about a foreign country.
If Natan Sharansky, an Israeli closely allied to Netanyahu, gets to write in the Washington Post, “Jews stood up to the U.S. government 40 years ago, and should again on Iran,” I’m allowed to ask why the Washington Post is running appeals to Jewish American dual loyalty.
People would have to be living under a rock not to be aware Netanyahu and American rightwing Likud backers don’t like this deal. After years and years of the worst kind of incendiary fear mongering over Iran, a total repetition of what we endured, as a country, over Iraq, Netanyahu and the Israel lobby are now ferociously rejecting what I and by the way President Obama too see as the only alternative to another war. Well, they placed themselves in the crosshairs of an argument. We didn’t drag them there. Lots of American people don’t like and resent the access Israel has to influence our foreign policy; I do. And heaven forbid we get a long-needed rapprochement with Iran after decades– which could reduce Israel’s power in the region. Many Americans want that, the lobby doesn’t.
None of this is a secret, nor should it be. So don’t expect to shut up anyone telling the truth about it. Calling it Jew-baiting (as Tablet did just two weeks ago) is a form of blackmail. And more recently:
What we increasingly can’t stomach—and feel obliged to speak out about right now—is the use of Jew-baiting and other blatant and retrograde forms of racial and ethnic prejudice as tools to sell a political deal, or to smear those who oppose it. Accusing Senator Schumer of loyalty to a foreign government is bigotry, pure and simple.
Really? Accusing Senator Schumer of loyalty to Israel is beyond the pale? This is a senator who has bragged again and again that his name in Hebrew, shomer, means that he is the guardian of the Jewish state. This is the senator who has shouted “Am Yisrael Chai” — the people of Israel live! — at gatherings of the leading Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. So he can talk about his motivation on Middle East policy, but we’re not allowed to? Sorry, this has nothing to do with bigotry, it’s a case of censorship by playing the victim card as a means to intimidate and silence us.
We can all decide on our own what constitutes racism and bigotry, we don’t need overseers from Tablet magazine isolating words we’re not allowed to use because of ‘ancient tropes.’ If you don’t want people accusing politicians of selling their votes to lobbies, well then stop the lobbies from giving our politicians money, stop them from flooding the network airwaves with scary ads about Iran. Stop a foreign minister from making “marionettes” out of our politicians, as Yale professor David Bromwich says at Huffington Post.
Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev also objects to Tablet’s tactics in a column in the Israeli newspaper:
Tablet’s malevolent interpretation of statements made by the president, administration officials and the New York Times are so wantonly over the top that one cannot but suspect ulterior motives.
…..The editorial gives opponents of the Iran deal a powerful weapon with which to silence any criticism of Netanyahu or AIPAC or Jewish Democrats who oppose the president. It provides a convenient way for the GOP and other right-wingers to have their cake and eat it too: Netanyahu is allowed to address 10,000 American Jewish leaders and activists from Jerusalem, but mentioning their faith is forbidden; he is allowed to be the sole foreign leader to openly campaign against the deal, but singling him out is verboten; AIPAC can raise emergency funds, cancel all vacations and send its lobbyists to canvass on Capitol Hill, but say the words “lobby” or “money” and you are quickly branded a bigot; Schumer can famously boast that he sees himself as a Shomer Israel but you won’t dare say that when he seems to live up to his promise.
It’s hard to tell which is more offensive – or scary: the anti-Jewish comments creeping up on the sidelines of political discourse or the brazen attempt to exponentially multiply signs of anti-Semitism to gain political advantage. Obama and administration officials used language that even some of their supporters might find disturbing, but these have now been turned into unequivocal manifestations of a rabid hatred of Jews.
It’s only a powerful weapon to silence us if Americans rise to the bait and buy into Tablet’s scolding hogwash.
Besides, it really does not take a rocket scientist to figure out when a Democratic senator stands with the Republican caucus against our Democratic president and our State Department’s diplomatic efforts and rejects a major foreign policy achievement, lots of Democratic constituents and activists are going to reject the concept of that senator being elevated as their next senate party leader. That’s a no brainer, and it has nothing to do with Schumer being Jewish. It’s simple politics.
Take note, that goes for any Dem congressperson crossing the president on this deal, consider yourself warned.
You can’t shut us up. Move over Chuck Schumer, you’re an obstructionist and you are in our way.
Thanks to Phil Weiss for contributions to this article.
Fantastic article, Annie.
“You can’t shut us up. Move over Chuck Schumer, you’re an obstructionists and you are in our way.”
Never, ever should he be allowed to ascend to the leadership position. I think that all Dems that stand with Israel and Netanyahu should be “primaried” and ousted from their offices.
“Besides, it really does not take a rocket scientist to figure out when a Democratic senator stands with the Republican caucus against our Democratic president and our State Department’s diplomatic efforts and rejects a major foreign policy achievement, lots of Democratic constituents and activists are going to reject the concept of that senator being elevated as their next senate party leader. That’s a no brainer, and it has nothing to do with Schumer being Jewish. It’s simple politics.”
At long last, the necessary conversations about loyalty have begun. They are now going on out in the open, and it’s not anti- semitic to have questions about it.
Tablet’s vitriol is misdirected, of course. :
“Accusing Senator Schumer of loyalty to a foreign government is bigotry, pure and simple.”
Americans are not going to buy Tablet’s ranting & poo. Schumer, Lowey, Israel, Deutch, Sherman and Engel deserve any and all blowback. It’s not anti- semitic to point out facts.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Key-Jewish-Democrats-in-Congress-say-they-will-vote-against-Iran-deal-411546
“…they placed themselves in the crosshairs of an argument.”
Brilliantly written article, Annie and Phil.
Way to distinguish yourselves as leaders.
Thanks, Annie. I have two questions. The first I don’t know the answer to, the second I think I do.
Has any reporter ever asked Schumer or any other important politician if he or she is a citizen of Israel. This is important because any American who is voluntarily a citizen of another country as well has dual loyalty by definition. I understand there are lists on the WEB of dual citizen American politicians and civil servants, but I understand they are not reliable.
Second, if no reporter or interviewer has never asked that question, why not? It’s ludicrous to say it’s irrelevant. And it’s a lie to suggest it’s anti-Semitic.
I went around today, in my local strip mall, and I subtly engaged people I met there about the issue. I found that quite a few 25 years age or so, and 70 age or so, agreed that the two party system is a train wreck in their eyes, and very few had much information on foreign policy regarding Israel and even the concept of the “special relationship.” Many said they were looking for a way to make Third Party platforms more noticeable on mainline TV, and would look into Jill Stein’s Green Party stance on foreign policy in the Middle East when I recommended it. None were familiar with the acronym AIPAC. All knew US domestic and foreign policy were dictated by rich donors. All distrusted Congress, Big corporations, Big banks, Big insurance and Pharma companies. All knew the bottom line was that the little guy paid, the big guy did not, yet got to lay out the rules. All were just everyday people.
You wrote “If Natan Sharansky, an Israeli closely allied to Netanyahu, gets to write in the Washington Post, “Jews stood up to the U.S. government 40 years ago, and should again on Iran,” I’m allowed to ask why the Washington Post is running appeals to Jewish American dual loyalty.”
The answer is that the Washington Post is controlled by Jews who support Israel at the expense of America under certain conditions. We are a constant victim of what I call the MSDJM – the Mainstream Disproportionately Jewish Media. We have mostly been too intimidated by Jewish power even to raise the subject. But the Iran deal is finally forcing the pathology into the open. It is actually the Jews who are revealing the pathology because they have felt the need to further intimidate their unruly critics who have recently been bolder than ever before, even originating in the White House. The weak logic of their case against the Iran deal, coupled with the weak logic of defining anti-Semitism as a criticism of that logic, makes a sad spectacle that will not advance their irrational causes. We are seeing up close the strength and toxicity of their power in ways that never before were revealed for public consumption.