March 5th 2019
For the second time in as many months, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, has raised the issue of the undue amount of influence Israel has in Congress. Republicans, already under immense pressure as the Trump administration implodes in a fog of criminality and incompetence, have decided that Omar, a Somali-born Moslem, is a Jew-baiter and must be punished for the transgression of asking about Israeli influence. She has also raised the issue of influence of the NRA and major corporations, and for less reasons.
Nobody objected to her questioning the undue influence of lobbies and corporations, except, of course, for AIPAC.
The object raised was the “The Jews run everything” meme, long the province of neo-nazis and various other hate mongers. Omar, it was claimed, was raising the spectre of international bankers and vast secret Zionist cabals. If she were, that would be contemptible.
Only she wasn’t. She was talking about the influence of AIPAC, that that is a very legitimate point to raise.
For all the pressure it applies to public discourse, the NRA has never tried to make it illegal to criticize the sale of guns. Major corporations have a variety of ways of dealing with negative public sentiment, ranging from ignoring it to spending significant amounts of money on elevating their image and making their critics look like malcontents. It’s not against the law to say, “WalMart is bad for communities, so please buy somewhere else.”
With Israel, it’s different. Back in 2017, AIPAC managed to get 43 Senators to cosponsor SB 720, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. This extraordinary piece of legislation made it a felony to espouse a boycott against Israel, and even Israeli products made in the settlements, which nearly the entire world views as an illegal occupation. The US government itself maintains a list of companies operating in the settlements and avoids doing business with them.
To say the bill was draconian is an understatement. The MINIMUM penalty for advocating a boycott was $250,000. If you wore a T-shirt reading, “Don’t buy Bezeq telecommunications equipment, Teva Pharmaceuticals or Coca Cola products made in the settlements, it would cost you at least a quarter-million dollars. If you explicitly said, “Don’t buy Israeli products from the settlements,” the possible penalties would be one million dollars and twenty years in federal prison.
That would be one expensive T-shirt. For advocating a buying decision that, under all other circumstances, is not only legal, but a constitutional right.
Forty three Senators co-sponsored that constitutional abortion, including, shamefully, 13 Democrats. Fortunately, in the highly dysfunctional zoo that passes for America’s higher legislative council, it never made it to a floor vote. America was saved from this, not by patriotism and courage, but simple incompetence.
Merely arguing that the bill was an assault on American freedoms could get you branded an anti-Semite, an anti-Zionist, and a Jew-hater.
The terms are not interchangeable. Semites are a cultural and linguistic classification that includes Jews, Turks, Kurds and Arabs. The term anti-Semite as an adversary of Jews is a semantic null. Zionism favors the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel. Many distinct groups of people have similar cultural tropes, including many Native Americans and entire populations throughout much of the rest of the world. Zionism is neither less nor more valid than other such claims, and the desire to return to a home, mythical or otherwise, is understandable.
Israel was established after the horrors of Hitler, and human guilt over what happened and outside of the people displaced by the establishment of the state, few objected. But over the years, Israel has metastasized into a dark parody of itself, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who hobnobs with some of the most vicious right-wing fascists in Europe, bonded by a common love of authoritarianism. His son has been known to retweet nazi propaganda when it suits his purposes.
Zionism may have begun as a simple desire to “go home”, but it, too, has metastisized. Zionism has become a cult movement in the US, and the vast majority of adherents are not Jewish, but rather part of a toxic sort of Christianity that view the establishment of the Jewish state as a necessary component of the End of Days. God must destroy the Jews in order to rapture the Christians. Yes, you read that right; they want the Jews destroyed in order to go to heaven. And they call their opponents haters of Jews!
The other day, some trash Republicans in West Virginia, as a fund-raising ploy, put up a poster that showed a picture of the second airline smashing into the World Trade Center with the words “‘Never forget’ – you said… ” followed by a picture of Omar with the words, “I am the proof – you have forgotten.” It was horrific, and greeted by silence by Republicans on a national level. No surprise there: it’s newsworthy when a Republican acts like a decent human being these days. But a lot of Democrats also cringed and remained silent.
Let’s put this in context: suppose, instead of 9/11 and Omar, a similar poster had the gates of Auschwitz, and any prominent American or Israeli Zionist—or any of the 43 Co-sponsors of SB720. The uproar would be immediate and vociferous—and utterly deserved. It’s a vile correlation to make.
But people aren’t attacking that; they are attacking Omar for the mild action of criticizing the influence of AIPAC. I wonder how many politicians condemning Omar for a polite demurrer also supported SB 720, and argue that only a bigot thinks Zionists, and AIPAC, have too much influence in Congress?
The West Virginia Republicans are vile haters. Omar is not.
