Second comment I submitted to Bari Weiss’ piece, “Donald Trump and ‘Disloyal’ Jews:”

“Vote for a party whose base seems increasingly in thrall with newbie politicians who are unapologetic supporters of the B.D.S. movement, a new face of old anti-Semitism, even as the party’s leadership remains pro-Israel.”

Really, Ms. Weiss?

Your characterization of the choice facing Jews of voting for Democrats is just as loaded as Trump’s characterization of the choice facing Jewish voters.

Whether one is pro- or anti-BDS, why should anyone apologize? Neither is anything but a legitimate political opinion. They do not translate to pro-Israel or anti-Israel. Boycotting South African apartheid was never anti South African. It was never anti White South African.

Whether one is pro- or anti-BDS, here is why I support Ilhan Oman and Rashida Tlaib as valid Congressional representatives:
1) Omar and Tlaib honor their oaths of office;
2) Omar and Tlaib do not vote for anti-First Amendment legislation;
3) Omar and Tlaib do not vote for un-Constitutional legislation;
4) Omar and Tlaib question how the United States disburses our foreign policy dollars;
5) Omar and Tlaib ask that our foreign aid recipients be held accountable for performance.

Ms. Weiss, you and your fellow apologists would never question Omar and Tlaib, if they were doing exactly they are doing if it involved any other country in the world. Why do you demand we treat Israel differently?

You, Ms. Weiss, are the one demanding a Loyalty Oath. You’re in no position to criticize Trump. You’re just like Trump.

One comment I submitted to Bari Weiss’ piece, “Donald Trump and ‘Disloyal’ Jews:”

Ms. Weiss:

You cannot bring yourself to say “Trump is an anti-Semite.”

So, let me say it for you: “Trump is an anti-Semite.”

Now that we’ve got over that hump, I have a question:

If Benjamin Netanyahu supports Trump, and seeks his support. Likud, Netanyahu’s party, supports Trump; if AIPAC, despite its protests, supports Trump, and Trump’s Republican Party; if Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Trump’s biggest financial backers, clearly support Trump; if 19% of Jewish Americans vote Republican, and support Trump;

Then: With all these self-defined Zionists in bed with an anti-Semite, exactly what loyalty, if any, do these Zionists owe to the majority of Jewish Americans?

Again and again and again: If Israel is a valid example, and worthy of criticism, how is the complaint “We’re being singled out!” valid? After all, the definition of an “example” is that it is one among many. That it is only one doesn’t invalidate using any particular example as an example. No one is obligated to choose another valid example just because another is offended.

And frankly Israel is a singularly good example. Why? Because Israel insists that it’s a democracy. If, upon examination, Israel is indeed found to be a democracy, Israel will in fact be found to not be an example at all. So, if Israel believes that it’s a democracy, as it claims, that claim should be easy to verify, and we can all go “Excuse us,” and go on our way.

But if Israel is not a democracy, it’s claims to be singled out because of anti-Semitism is meaningless. What matters in the comparison of Israel to South Africa is whether or not Israel is a democracy. And that’s all that matters. No one is accusing Israel of being a Jewish State.

Again: Ilan Omar and Rashida Tlaib ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.

They are, of course, embarrassing, precisely because they are actually doing what all American legislators, AND all Jewish Americans, should have been doing for the last 50, if not the last 70, years: Holding Israel responsible for its policies and behaviors.

And whether critical or uncritical of Israel, all Jewish Americans (as well as Jews in Israel) have abdicated on their responsibility to hold Israel to account. All Jews have blackmailed themselves with the fear that any breech of “solidarity” – which has tragically been revealed as complicity – with “Israel-right-or-wrong,” that leaves Jews pointing accusatory fingers at two US Congresswomen who are DOING THEIR JOB, HONORING THEIR OATHS OF OFFICE, because they are Muslim, when in fact the only thing Omar and Tlaib are really “guilty” of is exposing decades of failure and fecklessness on the part of Jews, on the part of Democrats, AND on the part of Republicans, all of whom have used Israel for extortion, for blackmail, and in every other cynical way, for self-advancement.

Had everyone taken their relationships with Israel responsibly, there would now be NO ISRAEL for the likes of Trump to exploit. Jews are not guilty of dual loyalty. Jews are guilty of irresponsibility and hypocrisy. Jews have let Jews down. Jews have let Judaism down. Everyone has let both the US and Israel down. Trump did not create an inhumane Israel that flaunts Jewish principles, not only against Palestinians, but in relations among Jews (Consider the relationships between Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Russian Jews in Israel.).

People rightly condemn Holocaust Denial. But there’s something worse than Holocaust Denial: Holocaust Confirmation: Essentially confirming that the Nazi approach to their perceived enemies was acceptable if not correct. Because that is exactly how Israelis treat Palestinians. Israel has become an assertion that the Nazis behaved somehow honorably, and that the only problem for Jews in the world is that Jews did not behave the same way (Which is very much what Jewish Republicans, particularly those most supportive of Trump, such as the Adelsons, assert. Jewish Democrats have been at best ambivalent, but effectively, no different.) as fascists everywhere.

Jews and Democrats have handed this to Trump. Demonizing Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib will not solve the problem. Dealing with Israel honestly is the only solution. But through decades of neglect, the Israel issue at least now appears to be intractable.

Instead of cutting U.S. military aid to Israel the U.S. should use those funds to invade Israel/Palestine, occupy everyone, demobilize both sides, reset the borders where they were in 1948, give everyone the option to stay where they are or move, wherever they will pledge to live in peace, and fund a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild – and make Israel pay for the Marshall Plan.

Probably cost more than $4 billion a year we toss away to Israel now. But I suspect we’d be able to save all that and more all around the rest of the Middle East, NOT supporting Israeli internal and external aggression.

Sounds soundly CONSERVATIVE to me.

The New York Times is not guilty of “Orientalism” in it’s Israel/Palestine coverage.

The NYT is guilty of committed, consistent, lying.

Do the math..

The state of Israel was founded in 1948. 71 years ago.

Rashida Tlaib’s grandmother is 90. She was born in Palestine. 19 years before there was an Israel. Rashida Tlaib’s grandmother never left Palestine.

So how did a 19 year old Palestinian woman who has never left the country of her birth suddenly find herself in a state that doesn’t recognize her citizenship or her rights, her human rights? As if she wasn’t born where she still is?

Oh, that’s right. The Zionists simply took it, violently (No the Arabs didn’t try to drive out the Jews in ’48, or in ’67. Those myths are as true as Trump’s own stories.). And now, we have the Israelis outraged that anyone would promote the BDS movement, to try to re-gain Rashida Tlaib’s grandmother her citizenship rights, her human rights. Why? Because the Israelis claim that the supporters of BDS want to delegitimize the Jew’s “rights to their own land,” to deny the Jew’s “right to their own existence.”

But the current BDS movement only hopes to re-establish Palestinian civil and human rights within Israel and the occupied territories, not to drive out the Jews.

The “BDS movement” intent on driving a people off of their land, and out of existence? THAT “BDS movement” has been Zionism. THAT “BDS movement” has been Israel.

So, the truth? Some people’s BDS movements are apparently more legitimate than other people’s BDS movements.

“Leading” Jews?

And who, exactly, chose these “leaders?” Or did they just appoint themselves?

One of the things I liked about Judaism from my childhood is that Jews had NO hierarchy. Yes, there were elders and wise people, rabbis. But they had no institutional authority. If they were respected, it was because they earned and deserved respect, by being good human beings at least as much as by being “good” Jews.

I always liked that there was no intermediary between me as a Jew, and God, however I chose to conceive of God. And that our “covenant” was a set of pretty sensible rules, most important those that dealt with how I behaved with other humans, culminating in the Gold Rule, how I was to treat other humans.

I have never followed anyone, just because they declared themselves “leader” or because someone else told me that someone was a “leader.” I always first asked if that person was a good human, and then, perhaps, if that human was smart, wise. I chose my own leaders.

As opposed to Trump and his supporters, who simply LOVE Jews! Particularly all those Evangelical Trump supporters. They REALLY love Jews! Roasted in the fires of Hell, that is.

What difference does it make if Netanyahu falls or not? Will he be replaced by a non-fascist? No.