(JNi.media) US Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) this past weekend has made two separate demands for an apology from former Congressman Jim Slattery (D-KS), because Slattery said opponents of the nuclear deal with Iran are trying to curry favor with Jewish voters, CJOnline.com reported.
On Saturday, Slattery told a Democratic audience in Lawrence, KS, the deal is better than the US setting off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Slattery has spent the last ten years trying to forge and maintain an interfaith dialogue with Iran, and so, naturally, he suggested that those who were against the deal were waging a campaign to win over Jewish voters and Jewish campaign contributions.
Of course, accusing Jews as being warmongers is as old as the history of the Jewish nation—alongside accusations of Jews as treasonous pacifists. And Pompeo on Saturday night responded to this slight with a fiery email, stating that Slattery’s “suggestion is disgusting, borderline anti-Semitic and deeply repugnant.” He added: “Rep. Slattery should apologize immediately for even hinting that those of us against this are doing so on behalf of a ‘cadre of political operatives’ and for the purpose of currying favor with the so-called Israeli lobby.”
Instead of apologizing, Slattery said in a phone interview with CJOnline.com that it “is bizarre that he would say that, and ridiculous.”
But Pompeo was relentless, warning that “this kind of language, hinting that Jews are in control of American policy, has a long, nasty history, and Rep. Slattery knows it.”
“Using such terms as a political weapon is beneath the dignity of a good Christian man like Rep. Slattery. He should correct his statement and apologize to every Kansan, and indeed, every American, today,” he said.
Last February, former Congressman Jim Slattery made a “historic visit to Iran,” where he attended a conference on countering violent extremism.
According to the website The Iran Project, Slattery has been meeting with Iranians for over a decade outside Iran as a participant in a so-called Abrahamic dialogue that brings Iranian Shiite Muslims together with American Christians and Jews (the website does not mention who were the Jews in this dialogue). “As luck would have it,” some of his interlocutors now have prominent positions in the Rouhani administration, he said, including Rouhani’s chief of staff, Mohammad Nahavandian. Such a coincidence.
Slattery said he discovered another unexpected coincidence, entirely not the result of Iranian ground work before his visit: On his first evening in Tehran, he had dinner with Iran’s deputy nuclear negotiator, Majid Ravanchi, and found out that Ravanchi attended the University of Kansas at the same time that Slattery represented that district in Congress.
As he put it, “I was blown away.”
Rep. Pompeo believes the Iran deal as the “surrender” of Obama to Iranian leaders, an accusation he reiterates frequently. “Rep. Slattery places his hopes for this ‘historic opportunity’ in Iranian goodwill — but they are already cheating even before the deal is signed,” Pompeo said, according to CJOnline.com. “Rep. Slattery says we ‘can’t let perfection be the enemy of the good,’ but the truth is that President Obama didn’t get ‘good’ in this deal, he simply surrendered to the Ayatollahs.”
Slattery has challenged Pompeo to attend his appearance at Washburn University Monday night, to debate the Iran deal.
Incidentally, according to the Eagle Topeka, Rep. Pompeo has received money from many PACs, KochPAC, McDonald’s, the Snack Food Association PAC, FoodPAC, and Land ’O Lakes butter — but not a penny from AIPAC.