The Israel that used to exist is gone. It many ways, it was always more myth than reality and this is more a dropping of pretext than a fundamental change. But the dropping of pretext is still a significant step. Yet, in this country, people are tripping over each other to enforce a “no-criticism” rule for Israel. I don’t think this is an accident. As long as we’re talking about the meaning of “allegiance,” we’re not talking about who Netanyahu is aligning with politically or that he just announced that Israel isn’t really a country for its Arab citizens.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Agreed. It doesn’t serve any purpose. Talk about what is happening on the ground. Believe the people who say they support that, don’t even need to get into lobbying whatsoever. Ask them why they support that. The truth is in the pudding.
I’m hopeful because of the strong Jewish presence in our coalition that the US left is better prepared, and will navigate this terrain better than our European counterparts. However, it is notable that a pollster (David Shor) I trust thinks that it is possible a significant amount of Jewish voters will leave the Democratic coalition when this crackup happens, citing evidence in Europe (Jewish voters used to be all leftist and center left parties until the 1990’s, now largely in center right parties). I don’t think that will happen here, I think the structural factors are different. But we need to be mindful of these dynamics.
As the democratic party gets browner and more nationally diverse support for Israel will continue to decrease. Most of the planet after all does not look favorably on an ethno-nationalist oppressor state.
I personally think we should terminate the aliance as it does the US more harm than good but I get that is debatable.
It is definitely debatable, but it depends what we mean by terminate. If they leave us as a result of pursuing policies towards justice, that’s on them. But I wouldn’t be the one to cut the ties. Let them do it. They’re already making ties with Putin and KSA, and they’ll ally with anyone against Iran. I’m sure those contradictions come up as they reorient towards Putin and his cronies.
Still, how we go about this matters, and we need to be mindful of antisemitism so that we are stronger as a result. Using the word “allegiance” just isn’t helpful, even if sometimes it might be accurate (as we’ve seen when media used the word to discuss anti-BDS laws).
You can’t underestimate how much Netanyahu has done to blow the whole thing up.
By siding with the GOP and the evangelicals he is writing off at least half of America. That address to Congress exhorting the US to attack Iran was one for the ages and was really the start of the overt shift. One can assume that more thoughtful American Jews were horrified at this Address and could see forward that it would seriously disrupt Israel’s American political support.
With Trump at his side further aligning the shrinking demographic of angry older white rural voters with what is now an apartheid State, it will get even worse. Bibi and Trump are similar in a way, both piggish and ultimately selfish men who are quite willing to set things on fire to advance themselves. What comes after them, or who gets hurt along the way, is of no consequence to them.
The likely outcome will be a cleaving of Jews in America into 2 ‘tribes’ on the issue. How that relates to the Democrats against Republicans party allegiance will be hotly contended.
This thing with Omar is just the beginning of that cleaving process and there will be some real fireworks along the way. At the risk of trading in anti-semitic tropes, the will be a lot of arms twisted and money thrown around by interested parties while this is going on.
Regarding the sorting of American Jews into two “tribes” on the question:
The Zionists (for lack of a better name; I’m speaking about the militant colonial apartheidists, American and Israeli) have been very worried that most young Jews in America do not identify with Israel at all, and are appalled at the colonialism and human rights abuse. And among Boomers, if it’s a minority who are appalled at Israeli policies and American enablement of them, it’s not a small minority at all. (I was encouraged when I read about this some time within the past two years or so; I’m afraid I can’t recall where.) But you can bet that pro-Zionist propaganda funded by and shilled by the usual suspects is being cranked into overdrive, and all the poison directed at Omar and Tlaib is a manifestation.
In the current climate, I suspect that for many American Jews (who overwhelmingly abominate Dolt And Rump), the ideological resonances of white supremacy here and apartheid in Israel will be especially immediate.
It would be an interesting scenario to see American Jews in outright conflict with Christian Zionists over these issues.
It would not surprise me if it comes to pass.
The whole thing is also likely to play out along generational lines. Older folks are just in love with those “plucky Jews taming the uninhabited desert”. Younger people are not buying that car. That is why for people in the States who are trying to salvage the situation, major efforts are being brought to college campuses to shut it down. But with Bibi and Trump trashing the brand, it’s going to be a tall order. Many of the things that these two have said and done won’t be easily unseen or forgotten.
It’s such a poor situation that this sort of leader creates. It’s the cult of personality and scorched earth all the time. Putin is also like this. It’s hard to imagine what can follow it. Sometimes there’s a dramatic switch to the other direction after they are gone, because they so stir up people on the other side.
A) Israel faces actual existential threats that people choose to minimize or ignore for a variety of reasons. That said, Netanyahu and the Israeli right (and Christian ‘Zionists’ and psychopathic greedfuck American Jews like Adelson) are making those threats far more dire. Setting aside everything (and everyone) else, at the end of the day Netanyahu’s gonna be responsible for a lot of dead Jews.
B) While the American right is frothingly antisemitic, the American left is merely quite antisemitic. Despite all the right-wing asshole Jews playing the ‘race card’, despite the eager mislabeling of criticism of Israel as antisemitism, despite the many Jews comfortable inside the Democratic party and inside the far left that’s been clear for a long while. It should be no surprise to people who accept that being raised in the US means being acculturated to anti-black racism, internalizing sexism, etc.
Jews will find themselves increasingly at odds with both parties. Israel will increasingly become an international pariah. I used to think I saw ways out of this box, but now all I’ve got is despair.
Just like 30’s Germany wasn’t a country for its Jewish citizens. Yes, I said it.
The template for this really is South Africa, not Nazi Germany.
And one of the things that confirms it is that whenever the South Africa analogy is made, extra special disparagement and dismissal is dished out by pro-Israel folks – Because they know it’s striking close to home.
Agreed. But the point is to learn empathy from a history of suffering, rather than continue a chain of injustice and harm.
Yep…Apartheid.
Apartheid is the correct comparison. Those who came of age marching against Apartheid in the US should recognize that one right off the bat.
30s Germany did not have Jewish citizens, who were stripped of their citizenship by the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. You’ve made an invidious comparison.
Netanyahu is performing a long term public service by showing (smarter) Americans that Israel is a standard issue nation state at this point that has interests that don’t always align with American interests. It has always been this way – see Suez Crisis.
I have no problem with that. Neither do I have a problem with France, the UK, or Australia, or any other country, for exercising their own rights to pursue their interests.
The problem I have is with American citizens and politicians who think that the client, in a client-state relationship, gets to call the shots.
By being so extreme, Bibi is making it much easier for intelligent people to walk away. Of course, the like minded cult led by the Republican Party is all in on Israel, Putin, and all sorts of other nonsensical whacko shit.
Netanyahu is performing a long term public service by showing (smarter) Americans that Israel is a standard issue nation state at this point that has interests that don’t always align with American interests. It has always been this way – see Suez Crisis.
I have no problem with that. Neither do I have a problem with France, the UK, or Australia, or any other country, for exercising their own rights to pursue their interests.
The problem I have is with American citizens and politicians who think that the client, in a client-state relationship, gets to call the shots.
By being so extreme, Bibi is making it much easier for intelligent people to walk away. Of course, the like minded cult led by the Republican Party is all in on Israel, Putin, and all sorts of other nonsensical whacko shit.
Actually, we are talking about that. This battle with Ilhan Omar has focused attention on the state of Israel and Netanyahu’s lurch to the right. Democrats have made a significant shift by openly stating that criticism of Israel is not synonymous with anti-semitism.
Netanyahu’s maneuvering is about trying to save his own ass. He is facing criminal charges of corruption. He’s trying to buy supporters by promising Arab-hating extremists a place in his cabinet. The parallel with Trump ought to be obvious.
I agree that Netanyahu is trying to split the electorate with his fearmongering, but he’s been walking down this path for decades now.
Booman, in your post your used the word “allegiance” in quotes. You’re not stupid and you certainly know that a traditional anti-Semitic accusation is that Jews in the diaspora are loyal only to their own community and disloyal to their countries.
I think it is impossible to overstate the way that Jews are triggered when they see dog whistles about allegiance and influence peddling, another traditional anti-Semitic trope.
My being pissed off by dog whistles is distinctly NOT an attempt to suppress criticism of Israel. I don’t understand why this is such a hard concept for those on the left to grasp.
Could it be because the recent use of the term “allegiance” by Omar was in no way directed toward Jews, American or otherwise, and was deceitfully taken out of its clear context to smear a Muslim woman making important and cogent criticisms of US support for Israel and how such support is demanded and policed?
This is true, but let’s just agree to not use the words “allegiance” or “loyalty” or even talk about it this way with this frame of mind because it doesn’t advance the cause, and it’s not centering Palestinians. However, I do think everyone should read her entire quote.
If we’re going to credulously respond when bad-faith actors disingenuously pick out individual words to create a baseless smear we’ll quickly find ourselves unable to communicate at all.
Find some other way to communicate the same idea is all I’m saying. It’s not bad faith actors all around. We don’t even need to talk about this. Just talk about Netanyahu and how every Friday they’re gunning peaceful protestors who dare approach and protest in front of an apartheid fence because it helps the polling numbers of a criminal head of state.
Israel’s behaviour and the behaviour of our political system are linked but different issues. Our system can’t address the former if we can’t even debate it due to the latter.
We shall see if that’s true when Bernie Sanders starts talking about it in the context of the AIPAC conference coming up, since he’s going to be asked about it. I dont think we need to bring up lobbying. Turn it on Bibi himself, ask supporters of Israel why they support that, and if they don’t what they propose to do about it. Nail down what these supporters actually support. Them not being able to defend the indefensible speaks for itself, and theyll look like the bigoted fools they are.
Marduk answered for me.
But let me quote from Rep. Juan Vargas’s tweet. He’s a Democrat, by the way.
The first part of that quote is a mischaracterization of her latter comment about allegiance. She was concerned with effect on the recipients of pressure (including herself), not to American Jews, when she said she has a problem with people who think “it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” She made no claim, nor would it remotely accurate as subsequent events made clear, that the people who are exerting this pressure are all, or even primarily, American Jews. In other words, she’s being asked to pledge allegiance to a foreign country. With that, the only debate is over whether “allegiance” is an appropriate term to describe indisputable pressure. When people are asked to financially support Israel on a bigger per capita basis than any country in the world at the same time that they are dismantling their democracy, and to do it without a peep of protest, then I don’t think her word is inaccurate. It is unquestionably a triggering term, and for that reason she was unwise to choose it. But that’s the context for me.
It’s the latter half of Vargas’s quote that is key: “Additionally, questioning support for the U.S.-Israel relationship is unacceptable.”
That sounds like a pledge of allegiance to me, and, again, we can choose not to use that term because it’s historically freighted, but then we must choose another word than means almost the same thing.
That is why I say this has been a semantic debate about a word used to distract from what Netanyahu is doing.
The idea of pledging allegiance to a foreign government is offensive. No argument.
I and lots of other Jewish Americans have Israeli relatives. Every last one of mine is descended from someone who fled Europe in the supposedly civilized 20th century to escape persecution. OF COURSE I think of Israel as some sort of homeland for Jews. I don’t quite understand how I could think otherwise. That doesn’t mean I approve of persecuting Palestinians.
Jews are not the only people who live in diaspora and have a history of violent oppression. Other examples in the United States are Armenians and Irish. Irish emigres in the US used to be notorious for their material and financial support of the IRA’s guerrilla tactics against the British, but nobody accused Irish Americans of divided loyalties.
I’ve avoided in-the-flesh left organizations in the US for many years owing to what feel to me like demands for signing ideological loyalty oaths that include condemnations of Israel. I know someone here will accuse me of false equivalency, but I find that sort of loyalty oath as unacceptable as one demanding support for Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians.