The Jewish nightmare of Bernie vs. Trump
Ask British Jews what advice they would offer to American Jews, based on their experience fighting Corbynism, and the answer is unequivocal: Don’t wait until it’s almost too late to fight for your political home. Don’t pretend it can’t happen to you.
They mean: Pay attention to how quickly a mainstream party with a long pro-Israel tradition and deep roots in the Jewish community can be transformed into a home for enemies of the Jewish people.
Bernie Sanders is not Jeremy Corbyn, and the Democratic Party is not Labour. Sanders has repeatedly affirmed his support for Israel’s right to exist (though he is far more equivocal about its right to defend that right). We all know about his time on a kibbutz. And the Democratic Party has an overwhelming majority of pro-Israel legislators.
But more than any other leading politician, Sanders is responsible for mainstreaming the Corbynist wing of the Democratic Party. The party’s anti-Zionists, like Linda Sarsour, have gathered around Sanders. And Sanders himself supported Corbyn — ignoring the fears of British Jews, who overwhelmingly saw Corbyn as an anti-Semite.
Corbyn has shown us how quickly the politics of the fringe can become mainstream. Under President Sanders, those still-renegade voices within the Democratic Party would have intimate access to the White House.
Why are Democrats skipping out on AIPAC?
Who's going to #SkipAIPAC? The hashtag campaign created by the anti-Zionist IfNotNow group is winning even when their demands that Democrats, and especially their presidential candidates, stay away from the annual AIPAC policy conference next month are opposed.Gil Troy: AIPAC’s challenge: Celebrating bipartisanship when it’s passé
The radical group scored an unexpected triumph when one of its members ambushed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a New Hampshire campaign event. Warren was asked if she would avoid "legitimizing" AIPAC by skipping the annual conference because it was forming an alliance with "Islamophobes and anti-Semites and white nationalists." When Warren answered this falsified and loaded question with a simple: "yeah," it was heralded as a victory for a marginal organization dedicated to torpedoing the US-Israel alliance.
But in some ways, they also won when former Vice President Joe Biden answered a similar question by saying that he would go to the AIPAC event, but only to "convince them to change their position."
Left unsaid by Biden was what position(s) he was referencing.
Is it AIPAC's continued support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict despite the fact that the formula is looking more obsolete than ever? Or is it their uphill fight to preserve bipartisan support for the Jewish state despite the fact that Democrats are deeply divided about the issue, while Republicans are marching in lockstep behind President Donald Trump's efforts to closely align American foreign policy with that of the Jewish state?
While neither Biden nor Warren is likely to win their party's nomination, the fact that even the former felt that the only way he could justify his presence at AIPAC was to confront its supporters was telling.
Israel still enjoys bipartisan approval – 70% of Americans remain pro-Israel. For this now-threatened status quo to persist, AIPAC and other forces cherishing civility and bipartisanship in America must champion those values too, while AIPAC and others who care about keeping the Democratic Party pro-Israel must figure out how to resist the haters too.Congresswoman calls AIPAC a ‘hate group’ after it attacks her in ad
Instead, too many have insisted there’s no problem – overlooking the dramatic warning signs. Last year, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer proclaimed at AIPAC that “there are 62 freshman Democrats – you hear me? Sixty-two not three.” But while reaffirming that which still is, worry about what might soon be.
The “three” Hoyer targeted – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – are radicals who oppose Israel and bipartisanship. AOC insists that even before Trump, “bipartisanship was s***ty.” But more and more, the same Democrats who reject bipartisanship as “disastrous,” as “ruining America,” as perpetuating power, also demonize Israel. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean claims Israel “embraces ethnic cleansing.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren says “yeah” when a voter claims AIPAC is in an “unholy alliance… with Islamophobes and antisemites and white nationalists.”
More broadly – and worryingly – many Democratic presidential candidates threaten to blackmail Israel with military aid. And most Democrats refused even to read Trump’s “Deal of the Century” thoughtfully, to see if it offered anything positive.
A Minnesota congresswoman called AIPAC a “hate group” inciting against her after the Israel lobby featured her in an attack ad.
“AIPAC claims to be a bipartisan organization, but its use of hate speech actually makes it a hate group,” US Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat, said Wednesday in a statement. “By weaponizing anti-Semitism and hate to silence debate, AIPAC is taunting Democrats and mocking our core values.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee declined to comment. The lobby removed and apologized last week for at least two Facebook ads that slammed “radical” Democrats in Congress, and altered an online petition that said Israel’s harshest critics in Congress pose a threat “maybe more sinister” than ISIS and other terror groups.
“This is not a call to action, it is incitement,” McCollum said. “Elected representatives in Congress ‘more sinister’ than ISIS? Last year, I met with AIPAC representatives from Minnesota in my office. Do forces ‘more sinister’ than ISIS sit down and meet with AIPAC’s advocates?”
On Twitter, McCollum rejected what she called AIPAC’s “non-apology.” In its statement of apology, AIPAC said the ad was poorly worded” and “inflammatory,” but also said it “alluded to a genuine concern of many pro-Israel Democrats about a small but growing group, in and out of Congress, that is deliberately working to erode the bipartisan consensus.”
One of the ads was illustrated by a collage of three of Israel’s toughest critics in Congress, including McCollum, who is the lead sponsor of a bill that would link Israel’s assistance to its treatment of Palestinian juvenile detainees.
This language will be very familiar to people who followed @uklabour’s decline into moral insanity. @GnasherJew https://t.co/ludhJBSD5x
— Brits For Israel (@BritsForIsrael) February 13, 2020