Jerry Nadler (who reps the UWS, and used to be my rep) announced his support for the P5+1 negotiated Iran nuclear deal last week. He wrote a cogent essay detailing how he arrived at the decision. In contrast to Schumer's thesis, Nadler recognizes the demographic changes Iran is poised to undergo.
NY Jewish Congressman Slammed as 'Traitor' and 'anti-Israel' for Backing Iran Deal (Haaretz):
“Someone said I turned my back on klal Yisroel [the Jewish people] in tweets, in speeches. We are told a rabbi in shul compared me to the rabbis who approached President Roosevelt and told him not to admit Jewish refugees” from the Holocaust to America, said Nadler.
Someone else described his decision as “one of the most tragic betrayals” of the Jewish people, relayed Nadler.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind rented a double-decker bus on which he hung a sarcastic banner bearing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s smiling visage thanking America, and parked it outside Nadler’s Manhattan office.
Dov Hikind is the same guy who:
-
supports racial profiling for Middle Easterners (unclear on whether this includes Israelis, see below)
- was
associated with the
Jewish Defense League (a terrorist organization that once plotted to
assassinate Darrell Issa because he's Lebanese),
- was
Meir Kahane's "
right hand man". Same Kahane whose group was
deemed a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US.
- was
investigated by the FBI for terrorism.
- wife runs a non-profit
funding settlements in and the "Judaization" of East Jerusalem
- when
five Jewish teenagers beat up a Pakistani Muslim man in NYC said the victim was at fault for provoking them
- threatened to
withhold funding from Brooklyn college over a conference on BDS (Nadler incidentally
protested the conference too, but toned it down a bit after
Bloomberg's comments, we had a
diary on this back then).
Yeah, that guy thinks Jerry Nadler might have the wrong position on this one.
Meanwhile, Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador to Israel, has been receiving death threats and more: Israel increases security for US envoy after death threats over Iran deal (Jerusalem Post):
Several threatening letters have arrived at the embassy, which is in Tel Aviv, over the past week, numerous Israeli media outlets reported, and a threatening message was posted anonymously on Shapiro’s Facebook page.
The Facebook post referred to Shapiro, who is Jewish, as a “kapo,” the term for Jews drafted to do the work of Nazis during the Holocaust, and said the US had “abandoned Israel.”
Even the ADL thinks that post was a
bit too much.
Nadler was fully aware of the tone of the attacks that would come his way. In his essay, he said this:
I am outraged that some on the Left are making anti-Semitic accusations of dual loyalty or treason when someone, particularly a Jewish member of Congress, decides to oppose the agreement. I am also deeply disturbed that some opponents of the agreement have taken to questioning the sincerity of people’s support for Israel (or their “Jewishness”, if it applies) if that person believes the JCPOA is the best option we have for protecting Israel and the world from the threat of Iran as a nuclear weapon state.
Similarly, I disagree with those who suggest that Israel’s government or people must not interfere in seeking to shape American decisions on these issues, and I see such statements as a means of silencing an important part of the discussion. Israel and Israelis have an absolutely legitimate right to be concerned, given the existential threat they face, and to articulate that concern openly within the American political debate.
I have personally experienced this dangerous dynamic of poisonous rhetoric before, at another moment when opinion was sharply divided and some people placed politics and emotion above clearheaded thinking. When I voted against approving the use of force in Iraq, I did so not only because I was unconvinced by the justifications or arguments being made by the Bush Administration, but because of my understanding of the history and dynamics in the region. As I said at the time, Iran — not Iraq — was the real threat, and if we removed Iraq as a buffer to Iranian influence and expansionism, Israel and the United States would be left to suffer from the consequences. Suffice it to say, I took a lot of criticism for my vote, and both my American patriotism and my commitment to Israel were questioned. What made it even more difficult was the fact that the attacks on 9/11 centered in my district. And while history has proven my decision to have been the right one, the demagoguery is an unfortunate stain on that period.
It was wrong then and it is wrong now to question loyalties or motivations. A decision to support the JCPOA does not make someone anti-Israel.