There appears to be no limit to the sheer stupidity and reflexive malice with which people misrepresent what U.S. President Donald Trump said last week.
What told a reporter, “I think Jewish people that vote for a Democrat – I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
Cue an instant storm of outrage by Jewish groups and commentators claiming that he had accused Jews of holding dual loyalties – a trademark anti-Semitic accusation.
“This is yet another example of Donald Trump continuing to weaponize and politicize anti-Semitism,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
David Harris, chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, called Trump’s comment “outrageous.” Ann Lewis and Mark Mellman of the Democratic Majority for Israel called it “one of the most dangerous, deadly accusations Jews have faced over the years,” adding that false “charges of disloyalty over the centuries have led to Jews being murdered, jailed and tortured.”
The full context of what President Trump said, however, makes it abundantly clear that this “dual loyalty” interpretation of his words simply doesn’t stack up. Commenting on Omar’s call to cut aid to Israel, Trump said:
“Five years, the concept of even talking about this, even three years ago, of cutting off aid to Israel because of two people that hate Israel and hate Jewish people – I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. 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.”
Trump was thus criticizing Democrat-voting Jews for supporting a party that has become an enemy of Israel. Indeed, as the Democratic Party has become more radical, its hostility to Israel has grown. Last year, large numbers of both the House and Senate Democratic caucuses supported an end to the blockade of Hamas-run Gaza and suggested a more “even-handed” attitude to the conflict. The Pew Research center, meanwhile, has shown that while 79 percent of Republicans say they back Israel against the Palestinians, only 27 percent of Democrats share that view.
And now the party is embracing outright anti-Zionists and Jew-bashers such as Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, whose proposed visit to Israel this month was aborted after the Israeli government decided their itinerary was designed solely to incite hatred and do Israel harm.
The only Jewish group that properly understood Trump’s remarks straightaway was the Jewish Republican Coalition which – while other Jews were noisily losing their heads – coolly observed: “President Trump is right; it shows a great deal of disloyalty to oneself to defend a party that protects/emboldens people that hate you for your religion.”
Precisely. The astonishing fact is that Trump is sticking up for Israel against the enemies of the Jews within the Democratic Party while that party, along with its Jewish supporters, is sticking up for the enemies of the Jews within its ranks.
The real scandal is the Democratic Party’s refusal to take any action against Omar and Tlaib, despite their support for BDS (and thus the destruction of Israel) and their anti-Jewish remarks.
Tlaib likened Israel to the Nazis when she compared BDS to a boycott against Nazi Germany, while Omar has made several anti-Semitic comments, including claims that Jewish money controls American foreign policy. And it was Omar who accused American Jews of dual loyalty when she questioned the “allegiance” of American supporters of Israel.
In addition, their proposed tour of what they called “Palestine” was being partly organized by Miftah, a virulently anti-Semitic outfit founded by the veteran PLO activist Hanan Ashrawi. Reports on Miftah’s website have praised Palestinian suicide bombers, repeated the blood libel that Jews kill gentile children and use their blood in religious rituals (for which it later apologized), and claimed equally repulsively that Israel steals children’s organs.
Yet despite all this, the Democratic Party refuses to censure these two. Instead, it has reportedly discussed censuring the Israeli envoy to the United States and the American ambassador to Israel. And Jewish groups in America have expressed outrage against Israel over blocking the trip.
Jewish Democrats are thus supporting a party that is tacitly enabling the expression of potentially murderous anti-Semitism. Yet, they have the gall to attack as an anti-Semite the man who is calling out the party for the way it is progressively throwing Israel and the Jews under the bus – and who is all too correctly slamming those Jews who support it nevertheless.
There are many reasons why the Democrats and their Jewish supporters refuse to call out the anti-Jewish bigots on their own side and instead accuse President Trump, the most pro-Israel president in American history, of anti-Semitism.
As has been demonstrated in Britain over the epidemic Jew-hatred within the Labour Party, there is an iron conviction on the left that they cannot be guilty of anti-Semitism because they are “anti-racists.” Their political identity is rooted in the belief that they are always on the side of virtue against evildoers.
If they were ever to admit evil attitudes on their own side, their political and moral identity would collapse. So they turn reality inside out to defend the indefensible. And to protect themselves, they project their own evil onto their opponents. Thus, they falsely accuse President Trump of having the odious views of which their own side is guilty.
Nor can they admit that the Palestinian cause they support may be vile. Such moral bankruptcy is steadily poisoning the Democratic Party against the Jewish people, and those American Jews who support the Democrats nevertheless are indeed displaying a most tragic disloyalty.