It was absolutely fucking idiotic to retweet a tweet that says her intention was to be anti-Semitic. WTF, read before retweeting.
I wrote up a few examples, but then I realized how bizarre it is that you would need this explained. How about you give me some of your criticisms or maybe start a thread? It shouldn't be hard to criticize Israel (or any nation) without stepping on obvious stereotypes or conspiracy theories.
She should say that using her own words then! Instead of just saying "All about the Benjamins." Like, that's the issue. She could have just said what you're saying here, and that would be fine. But she said "All about the Benjamins" instead, which easily could be read any number of ways.Sorry, but no. She's saying AIPAC is using money to influence the people running our government. If someone isn't allowed to say that because mentioning money is anti-Semitic to you, then congratulations, you just fell for another one of AIPAC's go-to moves. They've positioned themselves to be unable to be criticized. I'm not falling for it, and neither should you.
unfortunately the target is not as helpless as the journalists they're gunning downYou've got to have the pinpoint accuracy of an IDF sniper if you want to criticize Israel.
"support for Israel is driven by campaign donations from a prominent pro-Israel group.""Omar singled out AIPAC, one of the most influential lobbying groups in Washington, as the source of those donations.""American-Israel Public Affairs Committee is a non-profit that doesn't donate directly to candidates.""its members donate to pro-Israel lawmakers and candidates"
Is AIPAC forcing its members to donate a certain way, or are they doing so of their own accord? Since this is the US I'm guessing the latter. So then are Omar's comments not factually incorrect? Or is something in the reporting above inaccurate?
A non-profit group that doesn't donate to candidates can't be the source of campaign donations that drive support for Israel.
I don't believe AIPAC shouldn't be criticized. I hate AIPAC myself. My belief that is such an argument shouldn't be tweeted or phrased in a joking matter like "All About the Benjamins baby" was used. She's a US Congresswoman and should know that her words do have influence. I agree with her argument, but I think her phrasing was not helpful. Whether intended to be a dog whistle or not is irrelevant because I know for a fact some people online will interpret it in a hateful way.I mean, I think it's pretty disgusting to imply that it would've been more ok to kill those Jewish people if they had been pro israel. Also I don't think those idiots in Europe are going to be that influenced by what's being said by a single, relatively obscure, US Congressman. Honestly, I'd argue that if you really want to deal a blow to the idea those conspiracy theories, I think the long term goal should be to lessen the power of actual lobbying groups like AIPAC rather than to suggest we can't criticize them directly
Which is problematic in its own right. Especially since Israel is hardly the only country made up of a targeted minority group and yet it's the only one where these issues arise.You've got to have the pinpoint accuracy of an IDF sniper if you want to criticize Israel.
Not her responsibility if people can't use their brains. And AIPAC/Israel = All Jews is a rhetoric often used by Israel themselves, so you go ahead and assign blame to them for perpetuating that nonsense then.
Mearsheimer and Walt literally wrote a book on the Israel lobby and its role in American politics, she's right
Which is problematic in its own right. Especially since Israel is hardly the only country made up of a targeted minority group and yet it's the only one where these issues arise.
They love Israel but hate the Jews. Total disconnect here. All the Jews need to return to Israel for the Rapture to happen, then the Jews can burn just like all the other heretics. All the hard liner pro-Israeli American Jews know this, it's just politically expedient to ignore ignore it. Fuck those guys. Thankfully most American Jews know better.Because the crazies think Israel is the centerpiece for Jesus to come back.
It's nothing but an apocalypse hard on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_PolicyMearsheimer wrote on israel?
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anyways Ill regurgitate the best argument ive heard against israel by a professor of politics and religion
Jews must be given Israel by god right before the rapture, for them to take it by force is not only an affront to god but prolongs our wait for the rapture, according to scripture anyways.
It actually is a problem.When talking about AIPAC giving money to politicians to influence politics? Sure, that's trickier. Israel in general? No, that's nonsense. If you have trouble criticizing Israel without being accused of antisemitism, you should start questioning where you've been getting your talking points. That's what I was responding to.
"She could've easily found three or four other ways to say what she said without coming off as Antisemitic, she just chose not to...
I understand that AIPAC is a tricky lobby to properly disseminate, but if she really wanted to criticize its "hold on politicians", she could've shown more tact. Especially when "Jews = money" is a common stereotype for such a small group of people..."
I mean of course, though I think we shouldn't downplay the role organizations like AIPAC have in shaping and spreading these opinions via propaganda that seeks to glorify Israel's good points and sweep a lot of their problematic actions under the rugI think being more careful is warranted. Situating the (vocalized, at least) Capital Hill consensus on Israel around $$$ is a gross simplification. Yes, AIPAC is powerful, but there are people who have a real affection for Israel, see Israel as a valuable ally, are generally sensitive to possible anti-Senitism, have religious reasons for supporting Israel, etc., etc.
That sort of gross simplification, that sort of reductionism, that sort of severity of interpretation is the stuff of harmful stereotypes. I don't think the Congresswoman intended to evoke any of the relevant stereotypes at all, but the act of minimizing room for complexity and sincerity and diversity in how people feel about Israel evokes them in and of itself.
Now, while we're on the subject of being careful, the people ganging up on Congress' first female Muslim members and painting them as evil anti-Semites can fuck off. Seriously. What they're doing is so much worse than anything these Congresswomen have done, and is a blatant example of how some vulnerable voices have been given more protection than others.
I also thought "she could've worded it better" until I realized it doesn't really matter. She'd catch fire for it anyway.
Between her and Ocasio-Cortez, Omar has the harder job of attacking the lobby with bipartisan support as well as strong cultural support among most of America, whereas Ocasio-Cortez can easily leverage populist sentiment against the rich, as well as socialist elements in both parties.
Yes, that was a very poor move. I feel Omar is very impulsive (compared to AOC) on Twitter, she caught some flak for the recent Venezuela hubbub as well. It's not really my place to put her down for this, though, I support her in both cases.I think it's easy to agree that she shouldn't have retweeted the tweet saying her initial tweet had antisemitic intent.
....tweet tweet tweet
people can wring their hands about the wording all they like, but there was absolutely no way Omar could say that wealthy pro-Israel donors play an outsize role here without being accused of antisemitism, let's be real here
Oh the hell with this "you need to do this the right way" thing. Haven't we gone over enough that "the right way" is just empty bullshit meant to placate nobody and help nobody because it's all empty rhetoric so that we can just brush people like Rep Omar aside and continue on with the Apartheid state?
She's a young woman who understands twitter, if people can't clearly delineate the line of "Of course AIPAC uses money to afford themselves massive undue influence" without assuming she's making an antisemitic comment then there is no magical combination of words and tonality that will paint it differently. It's all a bullshit facade to distract from the pro-Israel lobbies fangs that are in everybody. In every other context "Politicians taking money and favors from lobbying groups" is a clear and well understood statement.
Maybe next time they shoot an 8 year old for climbing a fence we'll get this same level of engagement and heated anger at how the IDF are a racist arm of a racist regime.
Probably not.
I agree with these posts and Sho_Nuff's post as well.money=influence=power is an uncontroversial statement, AIPAC gives out incredible amounts of money to lobby on behalf of Israeli interests, AIPAC =/= Jews and if saying that AIPAC is influential because of the money and power it wields is antisemitic then it is impossible to criticize the Israel lobby without being antisemitic
Yeah, feel the same way. It's right that she could have worded her tweets better, and it's also right that even if she did, she would still be deemed anti-semitic.Yes, that was a very poor move. I feel Omar is very impulsive (compared to AOC) on Twitter, she caught some flak for the recent Venezuela hubbub as well. It's not really my place to put her down for this, though, I support her in both cases.
She's been catching bullshit attacks from the GOP off nothingburgers for a while now.I also thought "she could've worded it better" until I realized it doesn't really matter. She'd catch fire for it anyway.
Between her and Ocasio-Cortez, Omar has the harder job of attacking the lobby with bipartisan support as well as strong cultural support among most of America, whereas Ocasio-Cortez can easily leverage populist sentiment against the rich, as well as socialist elements in both parties.
Oh the hell with this "you need to do this the right way" thing. Haven't we gone over enough that "the right way" is just empty bullshit meant to placate nobody and help nobody because it's all empty rhetoric so that we can just brush people like Rep Omar aside and continue on with the Apartheid state?
Meh, where were the Dems chiming in on this?She's been catching bullshit attacks from the GOP off nothingburgers for a while now.
This one actually got Dems to chime in because there was something to the problem this time.
You have a literal head of state (imagine if this was Trump or Trudeau or Xi) engaging in Holocaust revisionism. Nary a peep. It's transparent as all hell.For the third time in four years, Yad Vashem's historians find themselves at loggerheads with Benjamin Netanyahu. Back in 2015, they publicly corrected him on his breathtaking assertion that it had been the pro-Nazi Palestinian Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, and not the Germans, who had come up with the idea of wholesale extermination of European Jews.
Earlier this year, they spoke out again, sharply criticizing Netanyahu's joint statement with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, that whitewashed the role played by Polish citizens in persecuting Jews during the Holocaust, that they said contained "grave errors and deceptions" which "contradict the existing and accepted historical knowledge in this field."
And now they find themselves opposed to the prime minister again, as he plans to establish a "consensus narrative" of the Holocaust in Hungary, together with the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, which is planning to inaugurate its own "House of Fates" Holocaust museum in Budapest.
Oh the hell with this "you need to do this the right way" thing. Haven't we gone over enough that "the right way" is just empty bullshit meant to placate nobody and help nobody because it's all empty rhetoric so that we can just brush people like Rep Omar aside and continue on with the Apartheid state?
She's a young woman who understands twitter, if people can't clearly delineate the line of "Of course AIPAC uses money to afford themselves massive undue influence" without assuming she's making an antisemitic comment then there is no magical combination of words and tonality that will paint it differently. It's all a bullshit facade to distract from the pro-Israel lobbies fangs that are in everybody. In every other context "Politicians taking money and favors from lobbying groups" is a clear and well understood statement.
Maybe next time they shoot an 8 year old for climbing a fence we'll get this same level of engagement and heated anger at how the IDF are a racist arm of a racist regime.
Probably not.
Meh, where were the Dems chiming in on this?
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-how-netanyahu-became-a-holocaust-revisionist-1.6744462
You have a literal head of state (imagine if this was Trump or Trudeau or Xi) engaging in Holocaust revisionism. Nary a peep. It's transparent as all hell.
Evidently not a lot, which honestly just goes to show you how much these handwringers actually pay attention to Israel.
Hey you won't see me disagreeing with this, but at least she said something. More than I can say about our entire government, certain Dem freshmen excluded. So, even if a part of me feels she miss-stepped, I'm obligated to support her regardless. Waiting for someone who "speaks correctly" to come along is doing fuck all for Palestine.
Evidently not a lot, which honestly just goes to show you how much these handwringers actually pay attention to Israel.
My point is, they only care and speak out when it's convenient for them to gang up on someone, and when they have safety in numbers. This is where AIPAC derives its cultural influence; no one wants to break rank for fear of being labeled "anti-semite".
Hey you won't see me disagreeing with this, but at least she said something. More than I can say about our entire government, certain Dem freshmen excluded. So, even if a part of me feels she miss-stepped, I'm obligated to support her regardless. Waiting for someone who "speaks correctly" to come along is doing fuck all for Palestine.
I'm talking about our media's tendency to underreport on things that make Bibi look bad.You realise the Democrats don't control the media, right? I agree the media does a lot to take its eye off Palestine, but be real. There's a lot more cogs to irons out before it'll do that and it's not simply because the Dems want to look away.
I'm was referring to her critics. They're going at her because everyone else is. This "controversy" is a political dogpile.They don't have safety in numbers, otherwise they'd be doing that already. That's how powerful AIPAC is. They do that suddenly many of them will be replaced and you'll be back to square one. Nothing changes with that strategy. How you're approaching their influence simply increases their power, not decrease it. Going head on against AIPAC is political suicide, so think indirectly.
Given this place's contentious history on matters of Israel, when was the last time you saw this much outspoken pushback against the Israel lobby?Which she could have done without dividing the Dems over. AIPAC's antisemism changes have stuck less when it's blatant bullshit rather than handing them over the ammunition yourself. Saying things is not going to help that much, doing something in politics will but that requires not giving politically imploding on national media. The status quo is so fucked up taking them on directly with words is never going to do anything, while speaking correctly keeps politicians like AOC in the game so she has more of a set of doing something behind the scenes or paving groundwork for those who will in the future. If you're going to weaken AIPAC at least do it when it will provide suffice destruction, not self implode and do the work for them. That never gets the right results to destroying opponents.
I'm talking about our media's tendency to underreport on things that make Bibi look bad.
I'm was referring to her critics. They're going at her because everyone else is. This "controversy" is a political dogpile.
Given this place's contentious history on matters of Israel, when was the last time you saw this much outspoken pushback against the Israel lobby?
I think we're having the same conversation we usually do where I attribute significance and merit to outspoken social gestures because of their ability to change culture while you're only ever interested in legislative and political maneuvering, preferably as far from the spotlight as possible.
The "complaints of AIPAC lobbying money = dogwhistle to anti-Semitism" bit is a an old, tired way of shutting down all discussion on Israel, Palestine, and pro-Israeli lobbying. And Israel/AIPAC knows and exploits this, even as they push one of the most egregious anti-1st amendment legislations ever into the current Congress.
According to open secrets, the majority of pro-Israel PAC money is funneled to Democrats every election cycle. Pointing this out is not racist: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=Q05