Representative Ilhan Omar’s straight-talk about the corruption of the US political process by a foreign government was a service to her country, as well as to the cause of justice and peace in the Middle East. Omar impaled a great taboo with the first name of a remarkable, multi-talented eighteenth century American hero whose portrait appears on $100 bills. Outraged agents of that foreign government, aided by US politicians who know the truth of her words better than anyone, kicked in the center beam holding up the sky — but to their horror, the sky did not quite fall. True, she was branded a peddler of age-old tropes; yet it was difficult not to notice that the emperor was, indeed, naked. Self-righteous condemnation from the most powerful human on earth (you know, the one who shoved his weight on Jerusalem and Iran in exchange for millions from a gambling magnate on behalf of Israel, and who says that Jews are good negotiators who use their money to buy politicians) instantly dissipated into fodder for comedy by no less a mainstream media as CNN, which posted a video collage juxtaposing Trump’s feigned outrage at Omar with clips of his true, classic antisemitism.
Yet the outrage over Omar’s truth-telling addressed only a lesser taboo, not the single, core taboo that is at the heart of Israel’s seemingly inexplicable ability to ‘hypnotize’ (to use Omar’s word) the West.
The real taboo that Ilhan Omar broke was not accusing AIPAC of buying politicians. That was just the way it manifested. The taboo itself was freeing the hostage — Jews — from Zionism and the Israeli state. Outrage over Omar’s tweets requires — requires— that Jews and Israel are seen as synonymous. Even to ‘apologize’, Omar, too, had to engage in this antisemitic lie.
Thus it is the very people who feign outrage at Omar who are the purveyors of antisemitic tropes. They, not Omar, took the simple concept of a political interest using money and pressure to buy influence, and conflated ‘Israeli influence’ as ‘Jewish influence’.
Indeed even anti-Zionists are complicit in this when they qualify that criticism of Israel is not ‘necessarily’ antisemitic, or that ‘legitimate’ criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. These qualifiers implicitly accept the Zionist premise of some obligatory connection between Jews, as Jews, and the Israeli state — otherwise the qualifier is nonsensical. Something is, or isn’t, antisemitic independent of whether it has to do with Israel or not. And if by happenstance it does happen to concern criticism of that nation-state in the Middle East, it is, or isn’t, antisemitic independent of whether the criticism was justified. Try this on a friend and see the odd looks you get: “Legitimate criticism of Burma is not necessarily anti-Buddhist.” Or try: “Legitimate criticism of Liechtenstein is not necessarily anti-Catholic.”
It makes no difference how many people self-identifying as Jews protest to the contrary — no one has the right to make Jewry itself into a tribe headquartered in Tel Aviv. It is time to acknowledge that Israel’s claim on Jewry is categorically unlike any other state’s claim on any other ‘people’. It is a vestige of a sorry era of ethnic nationalism to which we bid good riddance in the mid 1940s. That it continues to be inflicted on Jews, and that it is used to empower ongoing crimes against humanity in their name, should outrage us all.
An interesting sample of the discussion about Omar from New York Magazine –
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/ilhan-omar-alleggiance-resolution-democrats-anti-semitism-israel-palestine.html#comments
Ilhan Omar Has a Less Bigoted Position on Israel Than Almost All of Her Colleagues…It should be “okay” for Americans who want their country to have a close alliance with a foreign power to form political organizations that advance their views. The problem with AIPAC is not that it pushes American lawmakers to show deference to the interests of another country. The problem is that it pushes them to show deference to a country that practices de facto apartheid rule in much of the territory it controls. If there were a lobby pushing Congress to put the humanitarian needs of Bangladesh over the immediate economic interests of Americans — by imposing a steep carbon tax and drastically increasing foreign aid to that low-lying nation — would the left decry the idea that such lobbying was “okay?” Of course not. Because progressives aren’t hypernationalists. And I don’t think Omar is either. So she shouldn’t frame her opposition to the Israel lobby in nationalist terms. The problem isn’t Congress’s “allegiance to a foreign country,” but its complicity in Jewish supremacy in the West Bank, an inhuman blockade in Gaza, and discrimination against Arab-Israelis in Israel proper.
“What Ilhan Omar Said About AIPAC Was Right
I’m ashamed to admit that endorsing AIPAC positions was all about the Benjamins for me and my candidate.
By Ady Barkan”
https://www.thenation.com/article/ady-barkan-aipac-ilhan-omar/
For the record:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/aipac-congress-democrats.html
New York Times, March 4/19 By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
“Ilhan Omar’s Criticism Raises the Question: Is Aipac Too Powerful?”
EXCERPT:
WASHINGTON — “When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.
“Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a long time activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.
“On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists ‘push for allegiance to a foreign country,’ they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.
“’Many other people involved in the pro-Israel community, a lot of Aipac-affiliated members, there’s a lot of concern; there’s a clarion call for activism,’ said Mr. Fiske, who is the chairman of a political action committee that backs pro-Israel candidates. ‘It really hit a nerve, and the grass-roots Jewish community in South Florida is not one to treat it as an ostrich, putting their heads in the sand.’
“Ms. Omar’s insinuation that money fuels American support for Israel — ‘It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,’ she wrote on Twitter, specifically citing Aipac — revived a fraught debate in Washington over whether the pro-Israel lobbying behemoth has too much sway over American policy in the Middle East. The backlash to Ms. Omar’s tweet was fierce, with even Democratic leaders accusing her of trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. The congresswoman apologized.
“But the swirling debate not only around Ms. Omar but also around broader currents buffeting the Middle East has forced an uncomfortable re-examination of the questions that she has raised: Has Aipac — founded more than 50 years ago to ‘strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship’ — become too powerful? And with that power, has Aipac warped the policy debate over Israel so drastically that dissenting voices are not even allowed to be heard?
“Those questions have grown louder with the controversy around Ms. Omar and will grow louder still in the run-up to this month’s annual Aipac policy conference — a three-day Washington confab that is expected to draw more than 18,000 people, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and leaders of both parties in Congress. To critics, Ms. Omar had a point, even if it was expressed with unfortunate glibness. Aipac’s money does have an outsize influence.
“’It is so disingenuous of some of these members of Congress who are lining up to condemn these questioning voices as if they have no campaign finance interest in the outcome,’ said Brian Baird, a former Democratic congressman from Washington State, who became a vocal critic of Israel, and Aipac, after a constituent of his was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in 2003.
“’If one dares to criticize Israel or dares to criticize Aipac, one gets branded anti-Semitic,’ Mr. Baird added, ‘and that’s a danger to a democratic republic.'”
Thanks for giving us Tom Suarez. He’s wonderful.
As for the Benjamins, I wish it were all about money. It’s also about the effect of decades of Israeli propaganda. And it’s about one imperial country built on stolen land supporting, and being supported by, another one.
Members of Congress are devoted solely to the good of their country. They don’t give a damn about money. Naturally they are offended by the suggestion that their political stances are up for sale to the highest bidder. Especially when it is true.