Last week President Obama held a conference call with interested Americans, seeking to directly sell them on the nuclear deal the U.S. and its P5+1 partners made with Iran.
Many Jews who listened on the call were taken aback by what they heard as coded anti-Semitic language being used by the President to attack those who are critical of the deal.
On Friday, the Republican Jewish Coalition issued a statement demanding that Obama stop demonizing the critics of the Iran deal with code words for Jews.
Matt Brooks, the executive director of the RJC, quoted the President’s comment, that the “lobbying taking place on the other side is fierce, well-financed and relentless.”
Brooks responded, “Some of us have been around long enough to remember how Jewish groups – including Jewish Republicans – came down hard on the first President Bush for similar remarks.
“Apparently, the President’s claim that he ‘welcomes a robust debate’ was just rhetoric – like his administration’s repeated pledges to make Iran submit to ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections.
“Jewish leaders need to hold President Obama to the same standards they held the first President Bush. And President Obama should stick to the facts and stop demonizing Americans who are rightly skeptical of his dubious deal with the Tehran regime.”
During a September 12, 1991 press conference, President George H.W. Bush said, in response to a question about loan guarantees to Israel:
“I think it will sell, but it’s taken a little time. And we’re up against a very strong and effective, sometimes, groups that go up to the Hill. I heard today there was something like a thousand lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question. We’ve got one lonely little guy down here doing it.”
As at least one observer noticed, in addition to using code words like “lobby” and “well-financed,” President Obama also repeated the idea that “the same people who are opposing the Iran deal got us into the Iraq war.” The “neocons” are frequently blamed for pulling the U.S. into the Iraq war, and “neocons” is frequently a code word for Jews.