After decades of tilting left-liberal in the most conventional sense, something may be brewing among American Jewry that could result in real change, if it doesn’t start an internal civil war.
The day Donald Trump announced the recognition of Israeli control of the Golan Heights is the same day it was reported that none–that’s zero— of the many 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates would be speaking at or attending the AIPAC (America-Israel Public Affairs Committee) annual meeting later this month.
MoveOn.org had urged on them to avoid the conference, which has historically bent over backward to be welcoming to Democrats, and the candidates complied like dutiful lemmings.
The spokesman for Bernie Sanders, the one Jewish candidate (if you exempt “independent” Howard Schulz who also is not coming), said Bernie was not attending because of the prevalence of people “who oppose the two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians. This is an outright lie since virtually no one at AIPAC opposes the two-state solution. In fact, most of them yearn for it. But to Bernie, whose admiration of the Soviet Union is well known, such unashamed dishonesty is just more ends justifying the means. The truth is of little significance, nor is it of interest that it is the Palestinians who, if recent history is any indication, have no interest in the two-state solution. If they had had such an interest, they would have had a state of their own years ago.
Meanwhile, the same Democrat Party could not find it in itself directly to confront Rep. Ilhan Omar’s overt anti-Semitism and chose to water down their condemnation in some vague pseudo-even-handed pabulum about opposing all discrimination.
All this is happening while Donald Trump has been the most pro-Israel president since Truman, who first recognized the state. Indeed, Donald may have passed Harry, moving, as he did, the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem (the first president to honor that pledge) and walking away from the Iran deal that did nothing for peace and only allowed the mullahs to wreak havoc in Syria and Yemen and continue to threaten Israel with annihilation. Trump also placed restrictions on the funding the Palestinians used to provide pensions to terrorists and their families.
Trump’s approval of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights is the natural outgrowth of these policies. It is high time. Fifty-two years ago, when the Heights were still under the control of the ruthless Hafez al-Assad, who, like his son Bashar after him, had a proclivity for mass-murdering his own people, the Golan was used as a high ground for firing artillery into Israel. Now it’s used for vineyards and as a staging area for Israeli medics to help save the lives of the long-suffering Syrian people.
Yet still, Jewish “liberals” object to Trump’s actions. Dan Shapiro–Obama’s ambassador to Israel–got his knickers in the proverbial twist on Twitter, complaining that there hadn’t been sufficient “policy planning” (gasp!) and the Russians might be upset, a pretty funny accusation from people who were whining that Trump has been soft on Moscow for the last two years.
But then hypocrisy–and, even worse, fear–is the hallmark of the American “liberal” Jew. They think that by standing up for everyone else but themselves they will be seen as good guys and left to live their largely successful lives unmolested, the same mistake made by their semblables in 1930s Berlin.
It will be interesting to see what transpires at AIPAC. That support of Israel should be bipartisan had long been a watchword of that committee and the conference, but it is clearly no longer true. This has been developing for several years but now is at the point where it’s impossible about to lie about. A large and growing portion of the Democratic Party is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.
How are those “liberal” Jews going to respond to this? Do they have the guts to stand up? Not so far. Not even faintly. Conservative Jews, it should be obvious, are losing patience and getting fed up. These people–these so-called liberals and progressives–are not just self-destructive, they are dangerous to all of us. They are also not liberal in any real sense. They are reactionaries and they are fools. It’s time for them to face reality–and fast.
The “Jexodus” is happening. Long may it thrive!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member