"Jew-Hater"
Strange Days in America
I didn’t know I was a “Jew-hater” until I suggested in a comment that giving Bibi Netanyahu everything he wants (and then some) might not be the same as serving the national interests and security needs of the United States. Well, there, I said it. Maybe Bibi shouldn’t get all the bombs and weapons and support he wants, whenever he wants and whatever Israel does with them.
And for that, I became a “Jew-hater.” I guess because I wasn’t 100% subservient to Bibi.
These are strange days in America. Congress can’t jump to its collective feet quickly enough to applaud Bibi. Members of Congress proudly display Israeli flags outside their offices. Heck, a few members of Congress (notably Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania) aren’t happy unless they literally wrap the Israeli flag around their bodies.
What gives? What accounts for this madness?
Oh, I know some of the reasons. AIPAC. Christian evangelicals looking to the Second Coming. All the money ($100 million and more) Miriam Adelson gave to Donald Trump. All the profits to be made from weaponry and war. The corporate media, bought and paid for by billionaires. And so on. Yet something deeper, more insidious, seems to be at work here.
We used to have the “America, love it or leave it” crowd. Now we have the “Israel, love it—or else” crowd. In America!
Of course, ad hominem attacks like “Jew-hater” are meant to distract from real issues. People call you names when they can’t think of intelligent and persuasive ways of challenging your arguments. Yet this is America, after all, where much of our discourse (such as it is) consists of name-calling and other forms of insults and slander.
Honestly, I loved the response of another commenter to the “Jew-hater” epithet. The person simply typed: YAWN.
If you’re willing to think or write critically about Israel and the actions of its government and leaders, which indeed every American (and Israeli) should be, be prepared to be attacked as a Jew-hater, an anti-Semite, or worse. It comes with the territory. Even my Jewish friends who write critically are not immune. They, of course, are dismissed as “self-hating Jews.”
Fortunately, it appears most Americans today are onto the game that’s being played here. Progress, of a sort, even as Bibi continues to get everything he wants. Now Bibi says he’ll nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Did I say these are strange days?
Bill, there's something very dark at work here and I agree with you it's more than AIPAC money and the Christian Evangelicals pushing for the End Times.
U.S. Presidents and Congresses had pushed back on Israeli barbarism and overreach. But in the last 30 years that has all but disappeared. The combined influence of CIA/Mossad, since Netanyahu came to power, has grown out of control (it was said Trump was briefed by Mossad before the U.S. strike on Iran).
Their methods are well known: bribes, blackmail, and murder (of relatives).
As an anti-Zionist supporter of "free Palestine!", I am a proudly "self-hating" secular Jewish American then.