I wonder if the people calling out Congresswoman Omar would be as upset if she said that Sheldon Adelson massive donations to Trump played a large part in his decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem? Because I don’t remember an uproar about the New York Times leading an article about the move with: Ten days before Donald J. Trump took office, Sheldon G. Adelson went to Trump Tower for a private meeting. Afterward, Mr. Adelson, the casino billionaire and Republican donor, called an old friend, Morton A. Klein, to report that Mr. Trump told him that moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a major priority. While the article also acknowledges the influence of evangelicals, it doesn’t mention them until the fifth paragraph and it clearly stresses Adelson’s money (and AIPAC) as the leading motivation. The anti-Jewish trope is about shadowy Jewish Financiers secretly controlling politics. There’s nothing secret about AIPAC sponsoring congressional trips to Israel or major politicians from both parties making a pilgrimage to speak at their annual conference. Calling criticism of AIPAC anti-Jewish is expanding the trope to any Jewish use of money in politics.
Read more
Here’s the chorus from Puffy’s 1997 hit, It’s All About The Benjamins: It’s all about the Benjamins baby Now, what y’all wanna do? It’s all about the Benjamins baby Wanna be ballers, shot-callers It’s all about the Benjamins baby Brawlers — who be dippin in the Benz wit the spoilers It’s all about the Benjamins baby On the low from the Jake in the Taurus Anyone see any anti-Jewish tropes1 in there? ‘Cause I don’t. Yes, there is one reference to Jews: “You should do what we do, stack chips like *Hebrews*.” But there are way more references to Italian Mob films. The song is about enjoying the life of the wealthy, not using money for power. ↩
Read more
I often put on this act of a fearless fighter when talking about the mistreatment of my people, but tonight I had a direct one-on-one conversation with someone who actively denies the humanity of Palestinians (one of the apparent majority) that resulted in me crying non-stop for thirty minutes straight. It had me wishing I wasn’t Palestinian because I wished I were part of a group that received some sort of empathy from fellow humans. The truth is that being Palestinian is one of the hardest things I will ever go through and that no matter how much hope I am given from peers and emerging humanitarian organizations (particularly American-Jewish ones), I will constantly live with the fear that our narrative will conclude the way the Native American one has now- with genocide of the majority of our people, theft of ALL of our land, and the complete dehumanization of our people in order to do it quickly. We’re on our way there and I don’t know how much more I can ask for help and allyship. If you somehow don’t condemn the current treatment of Palestinians, delete me from your friends list because we are not friends. My friends…
Read more
I wrote this in a response to my friend Jillian on Facebook, but figured it should be here as well. So, the Senate is considering a bill outlawing supporting any boycott movement against Israel and our senators, Schumer and Gillibrand, are both co-sponsors (plus it has a Democrat sponsor in the first place. Ugh.) Among other things, the bill prohibits US citizens from “supporting any boycott fostered or imposed by an international organization, or requesting imposition of any such boycott, against Israel.” It’s a bit hard to find, but the bill refers to 50 U.S. Code § 1705 for penalties and they include: A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids or abets in the commission of, an unlawful act described in subsection (a) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $1,000,000, or if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both. Even if you disagree with the BDS movement (which I don’t), I would think this bill would appear monstrous! 20 years in prison for a political act! (And the bill explicitly refers to supporting a boycott as political. One would think they would…
Read more
