Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is virulently anti-American, in addition to being virulently anti-Palestinian. Bibi's government has directly insulted President Obama and Vice President Biden and two Secretaries of State, Clinton and Kerry, along with the majority of Jews in the US standing for peace with both Iran and the Palestinians. The Right loves Bibi, so John Boehner has just invited him to give a campaign speech in both the current Israeli elections and the 2016 Presidential contest to a joint session of the US Congress in Washington.
On the Right, this translates to President Obama, his administration, most American Jews, and every other peacenik being anti-Semitic. Not that that is a new idea. This is just the latest:
The Mark Levin Show, Jan. 23, 2015 (audio)
The Islamo-nazi barbarians want to drag our civil society into their hell, and we don't even know whose side President Obama is on. He has time for interviews with You Tube hosts but has no time for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m going to tell you something and it’s going to be uncomfortable. I don’t care how many wealthy Jews Obama surrounds himself with, I don’t care how many wealthy Jews contribute to his campaign. This man has all the signals of an anti-Semite and I’m not going to take that word back. I believe this in my heart and my soul.
because I can't quote you any evidence. After all, who are you going to believe, him or your lying eyes?
More vile selections from our not-so-crypto-Fascists, and some explanations, below.
This is the funniest bit in Levin's rant.
If we called the enemy what they are, radical Muslim terrorists, we would have the support of the Muslim world.
But apparently we don't have that support because reasons.
Dramatis Personae
Pastor John Hagee, founder of the Armageddonist organization Christians United For Israel (CUFI), and friends
Mondoweiss, 11/2014: When Hagee vilifies Obama as ‘anti-Semitic,’ Cruz and Dershowitz don’t walk out
Last Sunday night Texas senator Ted Cruz went to a Zionist Organization of America gala in New York at which Pastor John Hagee directly labelled President Obama “anti-Semitic.” Even the Anti-Defamation League condemned the remarks:
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today urged Pastor John Hagee to reconsider his remarks calling President Obama “one of the most anti-Semitic presidents in the history of the United States of America,” saying the comments were “offensive and misplaced.”
Furthermore,
A big honoree of the dinner was Obama supporter Alan Dershowitz. Rightwing duo Sheldon (Obama should bomb Iran) Adelson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach were there, the ZOA says, in a release titled “Zionism unites Cruz, Dershowitz,” as well as “Fox News television host Judge Jeannine Pirro, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes [who claims Obama is or was a Muslim], along with renowned businessmen and Jewish leaders Ken Bialkin, David Brog, Martin Gross, Jack Halpern, Irwin Hochberg, Ira Rennert, Richard Stone, Jim Tisch and Rabbi Avi Weiss.”
Jerusalem Post, 11/2014:
Christians United for Israel Chairman John Hagee says Obama is anti-Semitic
Breitbart, 4/2014: The Anti-Semitism of the Obama Administration, especially Secretary of State John Kerry
The Jewish Press, 10/2014: Obama Supports Anti-Semitic Palestinian Agenda of Jew-Free State by opposing illegal settlements
Ben Shapiro's TruthRevolt, 7/2014: [DAVID] HOROWITZ: Obama An 'Anti-Semitic, Anti-American President'
Whatever you think about Barack Obama, his acts show that he's on the other side of these wars.
ThinkProgress, 4/2014:
Right Wing Call Kerry And Obama Anti-Semites Over Israeli ‘Apartheid’ Comment
Yup, Kerry went there, but unfortunately walked it back right after. Actually, he didn't call Israel an apartheid state, but only said that it was in danger of becoming one.
The American Spectator, 9/2014: Biden: The Least Anti-Semitic Member of the Obama Administration
Damned with faint praise.
Patriot Post, 1/2015: Jimmy Carter, Bought & Paid For
So many lies, so little time. Well, I can at least do this one.
The Current Outbreak
Levin is following a well-worn path.
Jimmy Carter has been anti-Semitic since he wrote Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, published in 2006. Vanessa Redgrave has been anti-Semitic since her speech at the 1977 Oscars calling out "Zionist hoodlums", and since her various activities in support of Palestinians.
The other well-established meme in this space is the "self-hating Jew", including, apparently, me, although I have been a Buddhist for far longer than I was a Jew. On the opposite side we have the "Israel-Firsters", an idea which is also claimed to be inherently anti-Semitic by the usual suspects.
I read Levin's book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto a few years ago to see if I could tell what he thought he was thinking. Nope. The most content-free material I have ever seen. Nothing but buzzwords, especially Liberty (freedom to oppress others) and Tyranny (not allowing Liberty) strung together at book length for maximum outrage. The point, apparently, is that the sort of Republican who reads Levin already knows what he, the reader, is angry about, but RWNJs don't agree with each other on what is the greatest outrage, so being specific would lose much of the audience. Similarly, there is no need to specify remedies. Suppress/Deport/Kill them all! Or just cut taxes and regulation and social programs more. Whatever. Again, Right Wing readers and listeners already know what they want.
- Those who are angry about abortion want to outlaw abortion.
- Those who are angry about immigration want to outlaw immigration and deport even the legal immigrants and children of immigrants and even descendants of those who were in Texas and California before they became parts of the US. Some of them openly campaign for the repeal of birthright citizenship and other parts of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Those who are angry about minorities and women and gays want them put firmly back in Their (respective) Places.
- Above all, they want Their Country back, because it is self-evident to them that God gave it to them, and nobody else has anything to say about that. Certainly not unelected judges, and not nobody elected by nobody who shouldn't be voting anyway.
The worst of all are those who are angry about Israel and Palestine, who claim that it is equally self-evident that God gave all of that territory to The Jews, and likewise nobody else has a say in that, either. They want Islam outlawed in the US. Some want war with as many majority-Muslim countries as possible, at least including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and maybe Lebanon and Pakistan. Among those, the very worst are the Armageddonists like John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel, who are pressing for new sanctions on Iran in order to wreck the current negotiations, with the specific aim of provoking Israel to launch a nuclear war on Iran, as John McCain was once shilling for before Hagee turned out to be too much even for him.
It isn't a problem for Christians of that sort, as they see it, because all of the victims of the Armageddon war will be either resurrected into the Kingdom in short order or sent to Hell. In particular, according to this fever dream, The Jews will kill all of The Muslims, and The Muslims will kill all but precisely 144,000 of The Jews, who will all convert to Christianity just in time for the Second Coming and the Tausendjähriges Reich. (sic; it's the final Final Solution to both the Jewish and Muslim Problems) See Hagee's Jerusalem Countdown for more details, if you have a strong enough stomach.
With an audience this angry and benighted, this worked up over whatever combination of pet peeves from the bag of hammers that floats their boats (sic), it is then trivial for the Israeli and US Right to claim that opposition to Zionist expansion and apartheid in Israel and Palestine and war with Iran, even if it could lead to Armageddon worldwide, is anti-Israel and therefore anti-Semitic, as they have been doing for decades. And also anti-American, contrary to Mom and Apple Pie and the shining City on the Hill and all.
Anyway, so what? What's a little anti-Semitism among friends like these? And besides, it is much more important that the Bible Code proves that Obama is the Antichrist. Again. A gay Muslim Antichrist this time, but you have to take your Antichrists where you find them.
The real hypocrisy is that Obama, as the Antichrist, is going to bring about the End Times, including this long-sought Armageddon and the Second Coming and all, according to their own logic, which they are admittedly a bit short on. But anyway not one of them has had the decency to thank him.