The ongoing anti-Jewish/anti-Israel movement is finding enablers in credible people and institutions in America. Namely, civil rights icon and U.S. Rep. John Lewis; Sen. Elizabeth Warren; and The New York Times.
The use of enablers is sure to inch our nation closer to the political debacle that has befallen Britain – the choice between a poisonous, anti-Semitic hard left and a merciless, reactionary hard right. Boris Johnson’s election as prime minister last week left many British Jews desperate for a comfortable political home, as evidenced in a Jewish Chronicle article.
Republicans excitedly charge that Arab sympathizers are taking control of the Democratic Party, and one GOPer even predicted that they will dominate within five years. I have doubted this would happen, but I feared the possibility. I cringed this past week after pro-Palestinian forces benefited, if inadvertently, from enablers who have acquired respect over the years.
Congressman Lewis marched with Dr. Martin Luther King more than half a century ago, and on July 26 he was one of three members of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor a bill that compares Israeli policies to Nazi Germany. The number of co-sponsors has grown to include other prominent House members.
Without identifying the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced a resolution to affirm the right to participate in boycotts and oppose “unconstitutional legislative efforts to limit the use of boycotts.” The Somali-born Omar told voters prior to election day in 2018 that BDS is “counter-productive” to peace efforts, and after her election to Congress she told a Muslim girls’ magazine that she supports BDS.
What is repulsive about the resolution are the lines: “Whereas Americans of conscience have a proud history of participating in boycotts to advocate for human rights abroad, including…boycotting Nazi Germany from March 1933 to October 1941 in response to the dehumanization of the Jewish people in the lead-up to the Holocaust…”
Lewis defended his co-sponsorship because “of my ongoing commitment to the ability of every American to exercise the fundamental First Amendment right to protest through nonviolent actions.”
An understandable argument. What is not understandable is how Lewis and other House members who have been supportive of Israel could sponsor a bill that compares Israel to Nazi Germany. What the sponsors can do is remove the language citing the Nazi provision and related clauses.
Warren must be ashamed of hiring Max Berger as her presidential campaign’s director for progressive partnerships. Reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “The Warren campaign did not make Berger available for an interview.”
Why wouldn’t Berger be available for an interview? Warren should be proud of the people she appoints. Maybe she won’t make her Secretary of State available for an interview if she is elected president in 2020, a very real possibility.
The JTA’s lengthy piece updates previous reports of Berger’s appointment in which some Jewish organizations piled on about his willingness to “totally be friends with Hamas” and accusing Israel of “apartheid.”
Warren’s evasion on Berger compounds the original concern that she placed herself in a delicate spot because it sows distrust with supporters of Israel. If she yields to pressure to discard Berger, no matter what excuse she uses, she will lose the trust of pro-Arab forces, and Jews will still distrust her for hiring him in the first place.
The op-ed editor at The New York Times became an enabler by publishing a July 26 piece opening with: “Throughout history, demagogues have used state power to target minority communities and political enemies, often culminating in state violence.”
The author was spot on. She could have readily cited herself. After all, Omar can teach a graduate school course training students to become demagogues.
She contributed the op-ed, headlined “Push Back Against Trump’s Racism,” as a response to President Trump’s call for Omar and three other congresswomen, all racial minority members, to return to their home countries. The other three were born in Detroit, Cincinnati and the Bronx, and Omar has been an American citizen from Minneapolis for almost two decades.
Many op-eds like my own pieces could be headlined “Push Back Against Omar’s Anti-Semitism.” She is as disruptive as Trump, except that she moves in a different direction which is just as horrendous as that of our president.
To paraphrase her own words, “If working Americans are too busy fighting with one another, we will never address the very real and deep problems our country faces – from climate change to soaring inequality to lack of quality affordable health care.”
If Jews and other Democrats ever feel compelled to move to the Republican Party, Omar may not regret the transformation, but her enablers who cooperate with Jews on social issues and other concerns will miss them if it returns Democrats to the minority.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World