Uninformed or Disloyal and the Thin Jewish Line Between the Two (Judean Rose)

We all know what Trump said about the Jewish people, right? About American Jews being uninformed or disloyal? This, we were told, was the president being antisemitic! He’s using an ancient antisemitic trope: the dual loyalties accusation.

Except he’s not. The president is not speaking of divided loyalties to two different countries, the United States and Israel. On the contrary, he’s saying that American Jews are loyal to a single entity alone: the United States. He means that Jews who vote Democrat are disloyal to the Jewish people and to Israel.

Look at the context of what he said, when he responded to Ilhan Omar’s call to cut off U.S. aid to Israel:

“Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gone where they are defending these two people over the State of Israel? I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

What Trump means is that people vote their conscience. And the Democratic Party appears to have no conscience when it comes to Israel and the Jews. If you vote Democrat, you're throwing Israel and the Jews under the bus. 

Democratic Party: Lost Its Moral Compass

Here is a fact: the Democratic Party has lost its moral compass when it comes to the Jews and Israel. The party is not issuing clear condemnations against BDS, cutting aid to Israel, or the trip to Israel that wasn't, which was so clearly intended to demonize and harm Israel. There has been no official censure of the junior congresswomen for the things they have said and done against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel. The inaction and the silence of the Democratic Party in the face of this antisemitic onslaught makes it complicit in the attack, an actor with ill designs against the Jews.

The issues we speak of are deadly serious. BDS, for example, represents an existential threat to the State of Israel and the Jews who live there. Cutting aid to Israel, has as its goal, a Jewish people unable to defend itself against domestic Arab terror and attacks by hostile countries on several fronts at once. Maybe Israel doesn't need U.S. aid and is perfectly capable of managing without it. But the malicious intent of the effort is clear, a desire to bring down the State of Israel while placing the lives of 7 million Israeli Jews in mortal danger.

Hence, from Trump’s perspective, if a Jew votes Democrat, the voter is basically saying he doesn’t care whether his own people--7 million of them--live or die. If the average American Jew, in his continuing support for the Democratic Party votes his conscience he is collectively saying he doesn’t care about these things--doesn't care about Israel, doesn't care when his faraway brethren are endangered.  

Maybe They're Clueless

But there's a silver lining. President Trump did offer these average American Jewish Dems the benefit of his doubt: maybe they're not disloyal. Maybe they're just clueless! That could be it: they simply aren't aware of what is going on with the Democratic Party and what it has sanctioned with its inactivity and its silence. Hence, “a total lack of knowledge.” They're not disloyal: they're uninformed. 

Which is what happens when you just don’t care about something. When you don't care, you don't bother to do your homework.

To be loyal to someone or something, on the other hand, is first and foremost to care. You make sure you know what’s going on with those you love and the things you care about. You show your loyalty and broadcast it loud and clear. 

A Blood What?

So if the average American Jew is loyal to his people, he should know that Tlaib and Omar were to tour Judea and Samaria with Miftah, an organization that promoted the blood libel. He should know what a blood libel is, a primitive, evil, and unfounded rumor that Jews kill Christians to get their blood to be used in the manufacture of Passover matzah. The irony of the blood libel is that it has caused the spilling of Jewish blood alone, for centuries.

The average American Jewish voter should know that the itinerary for Tlaib and Omar contained meetings with two organizations tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. The PFLP has as its sole aim the murder of as many Jews as possible. Tlaib and Omar chose to give these people a hearing, and to amplify their views even now, by association. For surely if American congresswomen saw nothing wrong in meeting with these people--people tied to those whose sole goal is murdering Jews because they are Jews--it must be that goal isn't really so bad.

Now this is important: if American Jews know the Democratic congresswomen were to meet with people who thirst for Jewish blood, and these Jews continue to vote Democrat anyway, there's no getting around it. They are disloyal. To their own people and to Israel.

If, on the other hand, the average American Jew doesn't know the congresswomen were to meet with people who thirst for Jewish blood, it's because he hasn't cared enough to find out. Which is, arguably, disloyal. One might say he is "willfully uninformed."

Loyalty Is A Duty

In loyalty, you see, there's a self-imposed duty. You find out what you need to know in order to protect the people and the things you care about. And if you don't look to find out, it's because you don't care about your own people. Which means you have a loyalty problem. That's just how it is.

It's not just that the Democratic Party--the party of choice for the average American Jew--was silent in the wake of the trip to Israel that wasn't. It went beyond that, with candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president actually condemning Israel for barring entry to the congresswomen, instead of calling them out for consorting with antisemites. 

The response, meanwhile, of your average American Jew? Continued support for the Democratic Party, a party that is doing nothing about the antisemitic narrative taking hold of its kishkes, its innermost workings. 

Strange Loyalty

It is simple: the average American Jew is not using his vote to defend the Jewish people and the Jewish State. American Jews are not defending their people, their brethren in Israel. They aren't defending Israel, either. What we have is a dearth of loyalty accompanied, on the other hand, by this strange loyalty to a Democratic Party that is more and more, allying against the Jewish people and the country that is so central to their religion and history.

This is hard for me to understand as an Israeli American. I am certain it would be all the more difficult for a non-Jew like the president to understand. This lack of loyalty to one's own. It is a shameful thing. A moral failing.

From Trump’s perspective then, the Jew who votes as a Democrat is using his vote to express his conscience. When AOC trivializes the Holocaust by comparing detention camps to concentration camps, she is cementing an idea into our zeitgeist, that what happened to the Jews was nothing special, not so bad. That Auschwitz, for instance, was no more than an immigrant holding center, a detention camp.

The Language Of Holocaust Trivialization

And when AOC is not censured by the party she represents, they are helping this narrative take hold. So when you vote Democrat, this is what you are voting for: a narrative that trivializes what happened in Auschwitz, compares the separation of parents from their children to say, an infant thrown up in the air, with a Nazi shooting bullets into it in front of its mother's eyes, to count how many shots he can get into it before it falls to the ground dead. If you care enough about your people to know these things, there is a shocking disparity between these two events, all the more so because the illegal immigrant enters America knowing what will happen if he is caught. The mother of the dead Jewish infant, on the other hand, was taken from her home, packed into a cattle car, and shipped off to an unchosen destination.

If you are a Jew who is loyal to your people, you fight against AOC and the evil she peddles, that horrendous narrative. You move your vote to the other party, because you know what is right and what is wrong.

Because as a Jewish voter you either know what AOC said and do not care or you don’t know what she said, because you didn’t care enough to find out.

You Should Be Screaming

It is a very serious thing indeed that Jews would not be crying out against the Democratic Party, the things these women say about their people and the way they try to hurt Israel. If they were loyal to their own, they'd be shrieking their heads off about these issues. That is how things seem to President Trump and how it looks to Israeli Jews as well.



Unless of course, the average American Jew is completely unaware of these things. And then of course, we have to ask why they don't care enough to make it their business to know.

Uninformed or disloyal? It seems there is a thin Jewish line between the two. In either direction, it's a bad choice, the wrong way to be. The good news is you can change. 

What You Can Do

Tired of being disloyal, uninformed? Want to be a better support for your people and for Israel? Here is what you can do, going forward:

o   Follow alternative news sources like Elder of Ziyon to find out what is really going on and how these things affect Israel and your people.

o   Speak out loud and clear on social media regarding Democratic candidates who target Israel and the Jews.

o   Use whatever platforms you have to fight against BDS, Arab terror, the blood libel, antisemitism, and Holocaust trivialization.

o   Vote in a way that counts for your people. Don't vote Democrat.

If you are an average American Jew, that last bullet point is going to be a difficult one to swallow. The media has whipped you into a frenzy of hate against the alternative. Loyalty, however, demands a second look at what is really going on. If you love your people, step away from the Democratic Party. 

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