CommentsONE MAN’S OPINION-To what extent, if any, did Dem anti-Semitism in the U.S. indirectly impact Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu’s (expected) re-election?
My guess is that it sufficiently increased Bibi’s hand to push the right of center Israeli parties over the top so that they could form the new Israeli government.
Leaving aside Trump’s mental deficiencies, one also needs to evaluate policies on their own merit and not always discredit them because their proponent may be daffy. Trump's positions in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and later Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and stopping the subsidizing of Palestinian payments to terrorist families were way overdue.
While the manner Trump used to trumpet the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem capital was a moral disgrace and completely unnecessary, one has to admit that not recognizing Jerusalem was based on rank anti-Semitism. Jerusalem began around 3,500 B.C.E. in the Early Bronze Age. In 1000 B.C.E., King David made Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish kingdom. His son, King Solomon, built the first holy Temple about 40 years later. While the second Temple was destroyed and most Jews where sent into Diaspora in 70 C.E., Jews continued to live in Jerusalem although not under Jewish sovereignty. During the Six-day War in 1967, Israel regained control of Jerusalem, which once again became the capital. But Israel was denied recognition of its own capital. Suppose the world refused to recognize Yerevan as the capital of Armenia because Russia objected that the Soviet Union once controlled the city?
Trump recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. One of the standard results of attacking one’s neighbors in order to kill all its inhabitants is loss of land. If Syria had not attacked Israel, it would have retained control of the high ground. The world rewarded the murderous, unprovoked war against Israel by not recognizing Israel’s right to retain control of the Golan Heights.
Trump stopped the aid to the Palestinians which was being used to support the families of terrorists. While the Dems often say they oppose terrorism, they knowingly supported the American money being used to support the families of Palestinian terrorists. Prior administrations, both GOP and Dem, could have stopped this support for terrorists, but they chose not to do so.
As they say, "Nothing succeeds like success."
The U.S. Dems' opposition to all these decisions discredited the "Liberal" approach. One has to question whether anti-Semites have the political right to cast themselves as "liberal." Denying that one is anti-Semitic by using the code word, “anti-Zionist” fools only those who want to be deceived. Depending on context, “Hollywood,” “Liberal media,” “Globalists” are all code words that anti-Semites know mean “Jews.” When anti-Zionism denies the same rights to Jews that the world accords to all other people, that is anti-Semitism. Trump had great success in rectifying these wrongs against Israel, by taking advantage of the opportunity the Dems provided.
The Dems’ Anti-Semitism Gave Trump a Golden Opportunity
While Nancy Pelosi did not initiate the fashion of Dem anti-Semitism, she engineered it into the headlines by placing Rep. Ilhan Omar on the House Foreign Relations Committee. Next, Pelosi gutted the resolution against anti-Semitism to the point that it sub rosa adopted the Equivalency Doctrine where anti-Semitism may not be condemned unless it is worded to imply that Jews are guilty of the same acts. Most American Jews and American anti-Semites noticed this step toward official Jew bashing.
Trump has seized on the opportunity that Pelosi and other allegedly liberal Dems provided. By doing what prior administrations should have done years ago to recognize Israeli rights and Palestinian terrorism, Trump created a dilemma for American Jews. While Trump’s immigration policies are an anathema to most Jews, he was actually rectifying decades of American inaction with respect to them.
Since both Trump and Bibi worked to be identified with each other in the public’s eye, Trump’s decent treatment of Jews benefitted Bibi. While Bibi’s alliance with the horrid Kahanists was a shanda, should Jews continue not to have Jerusalem recognized as Israel’s capital or be silent about American indirect financial support of terrorist families?
The Role of Diaspora
The Democrat anti-Semitism reduced American Jewish criticism of Bibi as he swung what would have heretofore been too far to the Right. People do not take into account the complex way in which Jewish attitudes in Diaspora impact Israeli decisions. Since we are a notoriously disputatious people, I expect we will debate for years, for decades, and maybe for millennia the relationship between Israel and Diaspora in Bibi’s re-election. My initial stab at it is this: the Dems’ recent spate of anti-Semitism allowed Netanyahu enough breathing room among American Jews to shift sufficiently to the right to secure his re-election with help of the right-wing Israeli parties.
With Nancy Pelosi's anti-Israel, anti-Semitic Group Rights agenda, it is hard for centrist American Jews to be rooting for Liberals here or in Israel, especially when the Right Wing is delivering on promises which should have been kept decades ago.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
