The Bizarre Charge That Obama Is An Anti-Semite

J.J. Goldberg writes: The campaign against President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal tends toward the apocalyptic even when it’s in repose. Right now it’s virtually jumping the rails, plunging into a swamp of anti-Obama conspiracy theory, with a gaggle of conservative pundits openly accusing the president of anti-Semitism.
The charge has been a staple of the extreme far right since Obama first began his White House bid in 2007. Until recent weeks, though, it wasn’t common in the mainstream. Now it’s spreading like a chemical spill in a coal miner’s backyard creek.
As the theory goes, Obama’s recent comment about money and lobbyists mobilizing to stop the deal is actually a veiled reference to Jewish donors and pro-Israel lobbyists. In mentioning them, he’s supposedly trying to silence his opponents by threatening to unleash the anti-Semites.
Not that certain Jewish donors and a brigade of pro-Israel lobbyists aren’t mobilizing to stop the deal. They are, energetically. It’s just that it’s rude to say so. The president is supposed to pretend he doesn’t notice.
Technically, the Jewish community is tangential to the main act. The actual showdown takes place in September on Capitol Hill. The fault line will be partisan, not religious. Until then, though, the theatrics are heavily populated by Jewish activists. Israel’s welfare is Item No. 1 in the debate, at least for much of the opposition.
And lest we forget, the field marshal leading the anti-deal troops is Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. His deliberate centrality to the drama radically enhances his American Jewish allies’ visibility. In effect, Netanyahu has turned the Iran debate into a global battle of the Jewish people against the great world powers.
It’s fantastically foolhardy. Former Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni is calling for an urgent Knesset inquiry into Netanyahu’s anti-deal campaign, its legality and possible damage to Israel-U.S. relations.
Stateside, the Obama-as-anti-Semite theme seems familiar, but it actually surfaced suddenly. It happened July 22, right after the president appeared on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” The president said that if people favoring the deal contacted their representatives, they’d be heard. Indeed, he said, “the same is true on every single issue. If people are engaged, eventually the political system responds. Despite the money, despite the lobbyists, it still responds.”
A neutral observer might read this as a comment on America’s current debate over money in politics and citizens’ feeling of powerlessness in shaping policy. But some Jewish conservatives read it differently.
Lee Smith, right-wing political columnist for the online magazine Tablet, called it a “dog-whistle.” He claimed Obama was “hinting broadly at anti-Semitic conceits — like dual loyalties, moneyed interests, Jewish lobbies — to scare off Democrats tempted to vote against” the deal. He predicted that if any Democrats did oppose it, Obama was “going to tar them as dual loyalists who are willing to send Americans out to make war on behalf of Jewish causes.” That’s a dramatic prediction, based on rather slim evidence. But it’s classic Smith.
Jonathan Tobin, online editor of Commentary, called the “Daily Show” comment a “smear.” When the president predicts that war will result from the deal’s defeat, Tobin wrote, he’s labeling opponents “warmongers.” And since “money and lobbyists” is obviously code for “Jews,” Obama is calling Jews warmongers, ready to send other people’s sons to die.
Tobin further dismissed Obama’s claim that the “only alternative to his appeasement of Iran would be war.” Now, you might think calling Obama’s negotiation “appeasement” is itself a smear, implicitly identifying Obama with Neville Chamberlain, who handed Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938. But one man’s smear is another man’s Speaking Truth To Power.