Stephen Steinlight writes:
* As a Jew (one who was once solidly left-liberal and held a high position in one of the country’s most prominent Jewish Establishment organizations) I find nothing remotely offensive about Congressman King’s assertion that most Jews are liberal Democrats first and Jews second. Of course he’s right, as most Jews (especially the great majority who are thoroughly secular and leftist would admit in private). I travel all across Americas speaking and debating immigration policies for a DC think tank, and in the aftermath of my talks I am repeatedly asked by friendly Christians why is it that Jews are so solidly Democrat given Obama’s hostility to Israel and the growing partisan divide on Israel, with the GOP much stronger in support (see polling by Gallop). The answer to the Congressman, and I’ve given it at great length to many Christian friends, has to do with our history as a people who have been despised, oppressed and the object of mass murder and genocide. That history is instructive up to a point — concern about injustice and developing a high sense of empathy are good things –, but it also creates hardwired long-term attitudes, behaviors and neuroses that are impervious to historical change and frequently leave little room for critical thought, as in the way Jews are wont to identify with every group that defines itself as “oppressed,” no matter how unconvincing their case and regardless as to whether or not they hate Jews. The problem, in a nutshell, is many Jews have quietly ceased to be Jews (that is to say people who have a unique cultural and religious identify) and have become worshippers of political correctness, so that being a liberal Democrat is seen as conterminous with being Jewish. This attitude leads the faux Jews to declare as apostates those Jews whose social and political views may be more centrist or conservative. Taken to its extreme, the Jewish proclivity for over-identification with “the oppressed” causes Jews to identify even with their enemies. But until and unless Jews can develop a normal and healthy level of ego strength they will remain their own worst enemies.
* Who was it who anointed the previous fringe leader of the far left anti-Zionist J-Street King of the Jews? And who denominated Peter Beinart, an arrogant superficial “public intellectual” who just embraced his Jewish identify a few years ago in order to exploit it to to attack real Jews as his Grand Vizier? It’s bad enough that yet another purblind far leftist ass runs the Reform Movement (one would think they might have learned something from the embarrassing tenure of Eric Yoffie). These people do not speak for the great majority of America’s Jews — though they do speak for a wide section of its plutocratic oligarchical organizations run by limousine liberals. Jews should respond by boycotting these organizations and until and unless Rick Jacobs “walks back” is record of loving political correctness more than Israel — they should seek to topple him from leadership at the UAHC. It’s had enough that for European Jewry we’re back in the 1930’s and that the Middle East has never been more chaotic and danger: but it is intolerable when there is such an active Fifth Column within the Jewish community.
J-Street is a loathsome bunch of leftist biological Jews that were born without backbones and hate anyone that was. They love James Baker because he said “Fuck the Jews.” I say, “Fuck J-Street.”
* I’m a strong fan of Michael Oren — who is to diplomatic to say the obvious: Obama INTENDS that his remarks cause Israel “strategic damage.” He’s been looking for something, ANYTHING, to jump on to distance from Israel, and now he thinks he’s found it. But he is not taking on board the very different reaction of Congress, and Obama’s efforts will almost certainly die in the cradle.
* If Netanyahu is annoying Obama by “poking him in the eye” Obama is using the excuse to stab all of Israel in the back.
* That powerful, earnest and unqualified statement of support [by Ted Cruz for Israel] means that 75 percent of Jews will now automatically HATE Ted Cruz, even if they knew nothing about him before. The majority of leftist Jews are reminiscent of the character Groucho Marx loved to play: he would never join a club that would take him for a member. J-Street loves the anti-Semite James Baker; but someone who genuinely supports and cares for the Jewish people and Israel like Ted Cruz — he must be crazy.
* Martin Indyk is a revolting little would-be kapo. He is far more loyal to the vile Obama than he is to the Jewish people; and he is far more loyal to his own career advancement in the Israel-hating Establishment than to any sense of honor.
* Who the hell is Jeremey Ben-Ami to tell American Jews anything? I know the Obama Administration is trying to anoint him the Grand Rabbi, but most Jews who are compos mentis understand he is, in effect, a traitor.
* Rather than wasting their time with the White House or State Department (two bastions of Jew-hatred) the Jewish Establishment ought to be exerting maximum pressure on Jewish members of Congress to SAY SOMETHING. Where, for example, is Chuck Schumer? Is he that afraid of Obama and Hillary? If they don’t stand up for Israel now Jews should get serious about replacing them. We get far better support from our Christian allies, to whom I am profoundly grateful. But it is a disgrace that we get NOTHING from Jewish Democrats.
* Will ANY of the huge majority of American Jews who made the indefensible decision to vote for Obama TWICE admit their mistake? I doubt it. Biologically Jewish, but no more, their deepest identity is as left-liberals and the god on in their Holy of Holies is still Obama. Jews may have high IQs, but they are politically as dumb as posts.
* I detest what [Yonatan] Geffen said. That said, assaulting him is a moral outrage, a serious crime, and a stain on Israel. Even in times as tense as these it is a moral obligation on the part of Israelis and Jews to treat each other we at least a modicum of civility. This attack is a disgrace.
* More sickening pandering. The President and the prevaricating Mr. Clapper have already quietly removed Iran, the greatest supporter of global terrorism, off this year’s Terror Assessment List in what must be called yet another act of the most craven appeasement. (Where’s the “New York Times” when it’s really appropriate to define something as “craven?”) That was yet another major concession to mollify the Mad Mullahs. Now we have this — something like a Thanksgiving greeting to the rulers of that brutal regime. Hasn’t Obama tired of playing the role of Neville Chamberlain? Surely central casting could come up with a better stand-in.
* First, it must be stated that the article‘s giving pride of place to the assessment of Netanyahu by J-Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami, whom many in the pro-Israel Jewish community regard as something of a traitor, is unseemly at best and an inexcusable choice at worst. The framework of the article is also simplistic in its black-and-white analysis: is Netanyahu Dr. Jeckyll or Mr. Hyde. The answer is that he, like all politicians, is a mix. But some of the “evidence” being regurgitated to prove he is a monster, especially by the disingenuous and cynical Obama and his media flacks (including Jeffrey Goldberg), is beneath contempt. I refer to the outrageous and entirely misplaced accusation that he is a “racist.” To make that charge is to project American experience onto Israel in a manner that is entirely unjustified. That Netanyahu let his anxiety about many Israeli Arabs turning out to vote didn’t show he’s a “racist;” it showed he’s concerned about the political effect of that vote on his chances. Period. The Arab Israeli/Jewish Israeli divide doesn’t play into the American pattern of a racial divide nearly so much as a clash of national aspirations. What is at stake is a land claimed by different and rival peoples. But that doesn’t make Netanyahu a racist. France and Germany have fought over Alsace-Lorraine in more than one war. Does that mean that the Germans in WWI were “racist” about the French or the French were “racist” with regard to the Germans? This is pure idiocy. The term “racism” has been virtually stripped of all meaning by those who have employed it illegitimately in the US time and time again. Let’s not do the term or Netanyahu and additional disservice by misusing it once again in the context of the Israeli election.
* It’s time to face some inconvenient truths. If this latest incident doesn’t break down the wall of left-liberal of Obama’s mindset it’s hard to imagine what might. The obvious explanation for the president’s flippant trivialization of the “folks in a deli” and the ugly commentary by the White House spokesperson (there were people there that weren’t Jewish!) as well as the equally evasive and mendacious State Department spokesperson is that Jewish blood counts for nothing to Obama. If you haven’t figured that one out by now, wake up.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Some Jewish Democrats demanded an apology from U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa for saying that American Jews “can be Democrats first and Jews second.”
King, a conservative Republican who is important to his party’s potential presidential candidates in part because of his influence in Iowa, the first caucus state, was asked Friday by Boston Herald Radio about Democrats who had boycotted the speech to Congress in early March by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
“I don’t understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president,” he said.
The National Jewish Democratic Council “condemned” the remarks in a statement.
“For anyone, let alone an elected official, to actively belittle the hundreds of thousands of American Jews who vote for Democratic candidates is beyond the pale,” the council’s chairman, Greg Rosenbaum, said. “Rep. King is essentially stating that we aren’t Jewish enough for him. How dare he. We demand and deserve an apology at once.”
Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the House of Representatives, berated King in Twitter post.
“I don’t need Congressman Steve King questioning my religion or my politics,” wrote Israel, who has headed fundraising for congressional Democrats in the last two elections. “I demand an apology from him and repudiation from GOP.”
King replied, also on Twitter, that “real men make such requests face to face,” which prompted Israel to call King “mashugana,” or crazy.
