My new Congressional Representative likes to use Facebook to inform her constituents of what she is doing in the House. I do engage in Facebook and probably shouldn’t do so. Facebook is too much of a waste of time and it is filled with advertising and silliness. Then too, I like knowing what our Rep is doing so I use Facebook. I also connect with various people I hope to keep in contact with as their status allows me to input my thoughts and ideas. Here is what my Congressional Representative had to say: “I would like to make the following statement regarding Rep. Omar’s comments of Feb. 10. Her comments traffic in age-old stereotypes and anti-Semitic bias, drag down public conversation, and are counter to our fundamental values of religious freedom and
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run75441 considers the following as important: Hot Topics, Jacob Weindling, Paste Magazine, politics, run75541
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My new Congressional Representative likes to use Facebook to inform her constituents of what she is doing in the House. I do engage in Facebook and probably shouldn’t do so. Facebook is too much of a waste of time and it is filled with advertising and silliness. Then too, I like knowing what our Rep is doing so I use Facebook. I also connect with various people I hope to keep in contact with as their status allows me to input my thoughts and ideas. Here is what my Congressional Representative had to say:
“I would like to make the following statement regarding Rep. Omar’s comments of Feb. 10. Her comments traffic in age-old stereotypes and anti-Semitic bias, drag down public conversation, and are counter to our fundamental values of religious freedom and mutual respect – the very values that led to Rep. Omar’s historic election last year. While I recognize Rep. Omar’s apology for her comments, I call upon her to strictly avoid anti-Semitic speech, particularly when violent anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise, as we saw in the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue. Elected officials must lead by example, particularly now, and carry out their responsibility to unite rather than divide the American public.”
Well ok and she joined a chorus of others including Pelosi, McCarthy, Trump, and the other female Semite in the House. Seeing it was safe to bash Omar and not have anyone take issue, Pence joined the crowd yesterday. For Ilhan Omar, its gotta be a lonely life when you screw up, do not make your point clear enough, the sharks with which you hang with come in to feed off of your wounds, and everyone starts to call you an anti-Semite.
A little history: anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns under way in central Europe then. The term has a broad and extensive usage which is a misnomer since it implies a discrimination against all Semites of which Arabs and other peoples may also be Semites. Yet other peoples identified are not the targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood today. The term is inappropriate as a label for the anti-Jewish prejudices, statements, or actions of Arabs or other Semites.
Others may take exception with my definition or citation above. I am fine with it and am going to move along in my complaint. In his editorial “Representative Ilhan Omar is Not Anti-Semitic (So Says this Jew)” Political Writer for “Paste Magazine” Jacob Weindling starts off: “First off, Representative Omar is a Semite. Secondly, even if the people claiming that Omar is being anti-Semitic in the anti-Jewish sense are right (which again, they’re not), equating AIPAC with ‘all Jews’ is being FAR more anti-Semitic than what these folks claim Omar is asserting.
It all began with a tweet that admittedly was far too vague, and for a certain kind of person who looks at Omar’s hijab and thinks of anti-Semitism (again, she’s a Semite, just like me), or simply someone who isn’t plugged in to the day-to-day political madness, this looks like it could be another George Soros-type ‘Jews control the world’ conspiracy.
GOP House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who published anti-Semitic memes after George Soros received a pipe bomb in the mail, decided that he was done being an anti-Semite who ginned up support from the anti-Semites in the GOP, and was now an anti-Semite who virtue signals towards the Very Serious People in our nation’s capital to gain their support. Luckily for him, this kind of anti-Semitism is tolerated in our nation’s capital, and he has bent the Democratic Party to his will.
Omar quickly corrected her sole error of vagueness, and specifically identified who she was talking about when she insinuated that a political leader was taking money to advance an agenda.”
In this case Ilhan Omar called out the Israeli PAC “AIPAC!.” As Jacob further explains: “AIPAC is the Israel lobby in Washington D.C. To add to this, there is a difference between Israelis American Jews. This basic nuance is completely lost on much of major media, many of whom echoed McCarthy’s false charges of anti-Semitism, favoring the vagueness of Representative Omar’s first tweet over the specificity of her second one. As a Jew, this kind of stuff is so much more hurtful than the traditional stereotype that Omar is falsely accused of perpetuating:
The first-term Democrat suggests GOP support for Israel is fueled by campaign donations.
Jacob adds . . . AIPAC does not represent most Jews. Eighty-five percent of Israelis supported Trump moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, while just 46% of American Jews did. This hurtful conflation of two very different things reduces people like me to caricatures of whatever AIPAC wants, as if all Jews are united on the topic of Israel. We’re not—far from it. We are very divided and it is frankly, exhausting. I didn’t even want to write this column even though I knew I had to. Jews in Israel are different from Jews in America the same way anyone in Israel is different from anyone in America.
I can’t believe I even need to type those words, but the constant stream of bad-faith attacks on Omar from major power brokers in both the political and media establishment demonstrates an extremely narrow—D.C.-centric—view of the world. I’d bet half the people in our nation’s capital arguing that Omar committed some unforgivable sin haven’t been west of Philadelphia or south of D.C. since the 20th century.”
The rest you can read for yourself the balance of what Jacob has to say at Paste Magazine under his title; “Representative Ilhan Omar is Not Anti-Semitic (So Says this Jew).” Of interest might be Jacob’s comments on Chelsea Clinton’s opinion and the other side’s opinion by Batya Ungar-Sargon who Jacob finds falsely characterizing what AIPAC does.
And if I am wrong in my thoughts? There are enough learned people such as Barkley Rosser, Robert Waldman, Mike Kimel, and Dan who can critique my thoughts. I do place value in having a mix of Congressional Representative from different cultures, races, and genders. The country is evolving and has changed much since my ancestors arrived at the Rock.