"Allegiance" as a club against Democratic progressives, especially Ilhan Omar

Susan Davis reports on the Democratic establishment's effort to brand at least one of its Muslim Members of Congress as anti-Semitic based on their criticism of the Democrats' often extremely one-sided and conservative Israel policies in Democrats Planning Another Public Rebuke Of Rep. Ilhan Omar NPR 3/04/2019.

The fact that there is an Israel lobby is not news. John Mearsheimer's and Stephen Walt's landmark political science study on it, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy was published in 2007, though the reality was well known long before 2007. The most prominent group among that lobby is AIPAC, which tends to support hardline rightwing Israeli government positions. There are more liberal and critical elements of the lobby, like the liberal group J Street, which criticizes some of Israel's democratic deficits and foreign policy positions. And an important part of the lobby also consists for far-right fundamentalists Christians, who support hardline rightwing Israeli governments for their own bizarre mixture of political, theological and even racial motives, i.e., white nationalist fundamentalists often see Israel as a bastion of white supremacy.

See also online: Mearshimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby London Review of Books 28:6 03/23/2006 The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (60-page article) Middle East Policy 13:3 Fall 2006. Former President Jimmy Carter published a critical analysis of problematic Israeli policies in 2006, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. (See Jimmy Carter Defends 'Peace Not Apartheid' NPR 01/25/2007.) The irreversibility of the settlement process has greatly advanced since then. The two-state solution seems now completely impossible for all practical purposes, and Israel does confront the real choice of being a Jewish-majority state or a democracy.

I won't bother here hashing through the truisms that clutter around discussions of the Israel lobby: it's perfectly legitimate for American citizens and politicians to advocate for support for Israel; the US and Israel are countries with some national interests that coincide and others that conflict; anti-Semites criticize Israel, seeking to equate Jews in general with bad poilicies of Israel; some anti-Semites support Israel, notably many of the Christian fundamentalists who do so based on a sick theological construct of apocalyptic Scriptures that looks forward to the day that most Jews of the world will be killed in a massive war; a majority of American Jews (the US is the country in the world with the largest Jewish population numerically) are critical toward many Israeli policies, far more so than conservative Jews or Christian fundamentalists.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is currently a metaphorical punching-bag for Democrats who generally support hardline Israeli policies and who want to pander to Islamophia; Omar is Muslim and wears a hijab headscarf in Congress.

The current Democratic establishment's hostility to Omar is part of their larger freakout over the new strength and Congressional presence of Democratic progressives. I know corporate Dems take any kind of observation that Democratic hostility toward progressives who support programs a majority of not just Democratic voters but the public generally could wind up provoking a full-blown party split. But it could.

As Davis reports:

The latest controversy follows comments Omar made at an event last Wednesday at Busboys and Poets, a politically minded coffee shop and restaurant chain in Washington, D.C., that held a "progressive town hall" with Omar and fellow freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. The duo are the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., also attended the town hall.

"I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country," Omar said at the event. The statement has sparked a furious response from senior Democrats and Jewish groups.

Josh Marshall makes what I take to be a good-faith commentary on why Democrats should be especially careful about public references that could be taken to invoke the infamous "dual loyalty" trope. (The Problem with Ilhan Omar TPM 03/03/2019) I wouldn't join his particular criticism of Congresswoman Omar in this situation. Because, as he himself point out in the piece, Americans who are pushing for allegiance to Israel are primarily rightwing Christian fundamentalists, not Jews:

American citizens are entitled to espouse foreign policy views of whatever sort they want. The American Jewish community’s support for Israel has had a decisive impact on US foreign policy toward Israel going back decades. Anyone with the vaguest acquaintance with recent American history knows this. But it is equally true that the anchor of unequivocal US policy support for Israel today and specifically the Israeli right is far more anchored among conservative white evangelical Christians than it is among Jews. As anyone who follows these issues knows, the American Jewish community is increasingly divided over the policies of the rightwing governments which have dominated Israel for the last generation. [my emphasis]

Juan Cole expresses straightforward support for Omar's controversial comments in this case (Israel Lobbies slam Ilhan Omar even as they Try to Bankrupt small Leftist Arkansas Paper over Israel Boycott Informed Comment 03/04/2019):

The Israel lobbies that direct campaign money to representatives and senators insist that Israeli policy of imposing Jim Crow discrimination on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories never be criticized on the floor of Congress. They also insist that the US give Israel, a relatively wealthy country, $3 billion in aid every year on top of other extensive grants and perquisites, despite what the UN says are war crimes committed on a daily or weekly basis. ...

The hypocrisy of her critics on this issue is breathtaking. For nearly a year, Israeli snipers have shot down unarmed, unthreatening peaceful protesters on the Gaza side of the border, which is just murder. Israeli soldiers have killed hundreds this way, including small children, women, medics and journalists, and wounded thousands more with live ammo or military grade tear gas.

Cole includes video of Omar's comments that are at issue, Rep Ilhan Omar Speech about Standing Up for Palestinian lives (video dated 02/27/2019):

It's worth recalling one of the more diplomatically questionable occasions in American history, the time in 2015 Israeli Prime Minister addressed a Joint Session of Congress at the invitation of the then-Republican majority in both Houses, asking them to oppose President Obama's policy on Iran, i.e., the official policy of the US Government, and instead support his own government's position, The Netanyahu speech controversy, explained by Zack Beauchamp Vox 03/03/2015.

While the Democratic establishment panders to Islamophobia to bash Democratic progressives, the dominant narrative of corporate Democrats since the 2016 election is that Donald Trump is in some way working for the interest of the Russian government. They may be correct. But it's pretty severe cognitive dissonance for Democrats to criticize Congresswoman Omar while making a major theme of Trump's compromising links to a foreign government. Here's Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 calling Trump a Putin "puppet," which sounded less persuasive to the average viewer then than it would today. But she is nevertheless accusing him of allegiance to a foreign power. i.e., a much more specific claim than Ilhan Omar's comment for which she's most recently drawing such criticism, Trump to Clinton: 'No, You're the Puppet' Bloomberg Politics 10/19/2016: