Since the GOP suffered historic losses in the 2018 mid-term election, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has no real power in the House. So it is rather curious that he is making vague, toothless threats against Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
The Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives said he would take action against two Democrats who have sharply criticized Israel if the Democratic majority did not do so.
“If they do not take action I think you’ll see action from myself,” Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, said according to Capitol Hill reporters writing for a number of newspapers. “This cannot sustain itself. It’s unacceptable in this country.” — www.haaretz.com/...
McCarthy said he views Rep. Tlaib and Rep. Omar’s comments concerning Israel as comparable to Steve King’s white supremacist comments and “more so.” Some of this is definitely an attempt to play defense and claim that Republicans aren’t the party of hate. But does this claim hold water? Are Democrats who raise questions about our reflexive support for all Israeli policies motivated by hate? I think not.
The two Democratic congresswomen have raised valid questions about why our government turns a blind eye towards humans rights abuses perpetrated upon Palestinians. This oppression takes the form of grinding restrictions that have impoverished Palestinians and force them to purchase Israeli goods. They also take the form of state-sponsored violence meted out with regularity on Palestinian civilians and children. On Friday, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian children in Gaza. These killings barely made the news in the US.
That is not a surprise. Gazan protests have continued for months, but in a pattern made depressing through repetition, we have lost our capacity to be shocked by Israeli snipers killing children who pose no threat, from hundreds of yards away. More than 200 protesters have been killed by Israeli troops in Gaza over the past year. Almost 20,000 have been injured. The casualties exceed 1% of Gaza’s population, a staggering total.
The sight of Israeli snipers shooting young Gazan protesters does discomfit even the most apolitical American, when we are roused from our constantly entertained somnolence. In response to the vivid images of Israel’s violent repression of young Palestinians, the tenor of our conversation about Israel is changing. When militant settlers in an illegal “outpost” settlement killed a Palestinian man last month, the NY Times said: As West Bank Violence Surges, Israel Is Silent on Attacks by Jews.
A gang of a dozen or so armed Jewish settlers descended from a hilltop outpost to the Palestinian village below and opened fire, witnesses said. Israeli soldiers arrived, and instead of stopping the settlers, the witnesses said, they either stood by or clashed with the villagers.
In the melee, Hamdy Naasan, 38, a Palestinian father of four, was shot and killed. — www.nytimes.com/...
The article enumerates several instances where senior Israeli government officials have extended support and encouragement to settlers accused of violence against Palestinians. Even in the NY Times, the discussion is shifting.
In other venues, it has moved further than any expected. The activist group Jewish Voice for Peace quietly published a piece on its website saying it opposes Zionism. The statement is worth a read in its entirety. In a wide ranging interview with +972 Mag, JVP’s executive director noted that their organization often say things others many not feel free to. Yet, surprisingly in this case, even the center-left J-Street came to JVP’s defense.
“We reject the contention that Jewish identity itself or inclusion in the organized Jewish community demands support for Israel or Zionism,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote, while reaffirming that his organization is Zionist and proudly pro-Israel. “We do not accept the contention that all anti-Zionism should be automatically defined as anti-Semitism.” — mag.com/...
If JVP is an example of how much things have changed, Bret Stephens is a reminder of how much they haven’t. This weekend, he wrote a NY Times Op-Ed titled The Progressive Assault on Israel. The article is a veritable orgy of victim-blaming, deployed in a transparent attempt to defend Israel’s repression of millions of Palestinians over decades. It’s full of cherry-picked facts, and callous disregard for the suffering of people Stephens cannot and will not identify with. For example, Stephens tries to burnish Israel’s credentials as a democracy of “nine million”, conveniently erasing the millions of Palestinians who have endured decades of violent and repressive Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza.
It’s not worth our while to refute Stephens’ bad-faith arguments. It’s especially unnecessary since NYT readers have done it so effectively in the comments. Of the 1,500 comments the article has accrued so far, the vast majority criticize Stephens’ transparent biases. It’s the grey-lady equivalent of being “ratioed” on Twitter.
The shifting debate around Israel is the context in which Republicans have introduced bills to limit Americans’ speech with respect to boycotts of Israeli goods. Marco Rubio’s “Combatting BDS bill” passed the Senate with significant support from Democrats. Notably however, it received no support from 2020 presidential contenders. National party figures can read the tea-leaves. They know rank and file Democrats are now questioning uncritical support for Israel. The anti-BDS bill is now headed to the House, where it will run headlong into opposition from several progressive members, including Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib.
You could be forgiven for wondering why senior Republicans are going out of their way to talk about Israel. Don’t they have better things to do? After all, it’s looking ever more likely that the Federal government will shut down again in a few days?
Rep. Omar has a theory:
First, props for the Diddy reference which slyly reels in the right-wing Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a clever reminder that so many of Republican/Trumpian policies, from “Build Wall”, to painting “protesters and immigrants” in vaguely ominous ways are modeled on a template followed closely by Netnayahu.
It’s also clear that Rep. Omar is talking about the impact of campaign contributions. Yet, some people appeared confused about what Rep. Omar was referring to.
It’s no secret that AIPAC serves as a clearinghouse for contributions directed towards politicians who support its agenda. As a sign of changing times, a sitting member of Congress is saying this unequivocally. Underscoring how fraught the divisions on Israel/Palestine are within the Democratic party, Chelsea Clinton decided to throw in her own two cents and suggest Rep. Omar’s “Benjamins” tweet was “trafficking in anti-semitism”.
I am pretty sure Chelsea Clinton is bringing outdated views to a debate occurring within the very different Democratic party in 2018. At the same time, though Rep. Omar is undoubtedly right that campaign funding has something to do with the Republican motivations here. I don’t believe it’s all money. It’s also about power, electoral power.
Republicans view Democrats’ changing views towards Israel/Palestine as an electoral opportunity.
The pressure on Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is part of a larger GOP effort to drive a partisan wedge into the traditionally nonpartisan relationship between the United States and Israel. Republicans are casting themselves as the more resolute defender of Israel, heightening the party’s appeal to traditionally Democratic Jewish voters.
The Democratic Party’s renewed internal debate over Israel is certain to have repercussions in 2020 for congressional candidates as well as White House hopefuls challenging President Trump, whose unwavering support of Israel and recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital have won plaudits in the Jewish state. — www.washingtonpost.com/...
It is vain to hope that our news organizations had the ability to properly contextualize commentary. If they did, we’d be spared the embarrassment of reading the jarring claim that a president who called actual real-life Nazis “very fine people” was also an “unwavering support[er] of Israel”. Alas, that is unlikely to happen any time soon since editors and reporters seem to have the attention spans of gnats.
But WaPo is on to something here. Think about it as a variant of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. In the 1960s, the Democratic party under LBJ was pushed by activists including MLK to back away from its support for Jim Crow and segregation. Republicans then made a play for the votes of Southern whites by championing less overt forms of segregation and white supremacy.
If this is the play, then Kevin McCarthy also knows that it is quite on brand in the Trumpian, nakedly white supremacist era for a Republican leader to attacks Muslim women. What he’s doing here then, is feeding some red-meat to his Islamophobic followers. Some of them couldn’t care less about anti-semitism except as a cudgel to wield against others. Others have absorbed a steady stream of disinformation by agitators like Pamela Geller propagating a clash of religions theory. McCarthy’s strangely pointed attacks at prominent Muslim lawmakers are meant to appeal to the anxieties of this group too.
So the dynamic we see is that activists are pushing the Democratic party to reevaluate its uncritical support for the Israeli government. Republicans are hoping to take advantage of this shift to win over Jewish voters and evangelicals who identify with Israel at some level. Targeting two visible Muslim congresswomen is part of this strategy.
— @subirgrewal
Monday, Feb 11, 2019 · 6:47:47 PM +00:00 · subir
Update:
In a joint statement issue Monday, Democratic leaders said that legitimate criticism of Israel is protected by free speech, but Omar’s use of “anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she and Omar have spoken and that they’ve agreed “to move forward as we reject anti-Semitism in all forms.”
The statement comes after two Jewish House Democrats, alarmed by what they consider anti-Semitic comments from new Muslim colleagues, urged Pelosi and her top lieutenants to denounce the divisive rhetoric and take action to stop it.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) and Elaine Luria (Va.) are gathering signatures on a letter asking Pelosi (Calif.), House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and other senior Democrats to confront Omar and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) by “reiterating our rejection of anti-Semitism and our continued support for the State of Israel.” — www.washingtonpost.com/...