By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Let’s hope Congress soon adopts the twin bills for infrastructure and social reforms. They will likely jumpstart the economy and aid both lower and middle-income Americans.
This legislation could also yield dividends for Israel and American Jews: Eliminating much of the anti-Semitism from the Left.
Anti-Semitism today does seem overwhelming, and I can only identify two prime sources. There is anti-Semitism on the right, which is too complicated to figure out, and the scourge from the left has been plain for a long time. Los Angeles teacher David Feldman offers key clues:
In Israel, “This is an oppressor vs. oppressed situation,” said Feldman in referring to a related conflict within his city’s teachers union. “This is a Jim Crow or apartheid situation. What makes this situation one in which we have to take a stand is that American taxpayers fund what goes on there directly.”
Feldman’s oppression view is junk, but the pro-Palestinian crowd latches onto to a wide range of interest groups like a parasite and persuades them that Israel is oppressing Palestinians just as the powers in America oppress poor people.
However, if the lives of vulnerable Americans improve, would they so easily swallow distortions about Israel and American Jews? And if they are not poor any longer, what reason will they have to blame anyone for their condition?
Advocates for the Palestinians tell racial minorities that Israel is training our police forces in racist tactics through special training programs, which its organizers deny. Democrats in the House of Representatives get away with spreading lies about Israel; teachers in our second largest city pressed, unsuccessfully, for an anti-Israel measure within their union; and city councils in two prominent cities (Seattle and Burlington, Vermont) voted down anti-Israel legislative proposals.
The key word here is “intersectionality” – in which all persecuted peoples throughout the world are called upon to stand together. Lacking for Palestinians and racial minorities here are the same goals and oppressors. Many Palestinians seek to control Israel and exterminate the Jewish community, not to obtain justice and economic opportunity.
Arab sympathizers exploit the facts at hand to convince underprivileged Americans that our government is financing a foreign country ‘s military needs at their expense. We currently spend more than $3 billion yearly, and suddenly Congress is considering an extra $1 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.
The fact is that we can do both – address our domestic needs and aid Israel. Democrats support both, but Republicans ignore their fellow countrymen and women. Poverty-stricken Americans have been ignored because Republicans were only interested in helping Israel and could care less about the more vulnerable among us. Democrats have historically supported Israel while pressing for social programs. To accomplish the latter, Democrats either lacked power in the past or miscalculated their legislative strategies.
A healthy chunk of more than 40 million African-Americans, not to mention many others, concur that money sent to Israel can be put to better use in their community. It is also not lost on them that we participate in Middle East wars that they perceive as assisting Israel, and their sons and daughters are among those who must sacrifice their lives.
Just the other week, I encountered a Facebook post questioning why we spend $3 billion or more yearly on Israeli defense needs while the Navajo tribe is denied clean water. The post touched off similar attacks comparing Israeli aid to our domestic concerns.
“We need to care for our own,” writes Lori Baughman Niell, “and stop giving away taxpayer’s hard earned money to countries who hate America.”
“They have universal health care for their citizens and we do not,” adds Jo Ann Crouch.
Middle East wars were cited by Ibraheem Samirah, a departing Virginia legislator, who tweeted in late October, “Mossad creates fossil fuel wars using malicious intel, most famously the WMD lie (deceased Secretary of State) Colin Powell spewed to the world to justify the Iraq war,” according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Powell argued before the United Nations in defense of the planned invasion of Iraq in 2003. Samirah’s tweet was attached to a Guardian article that did not include Samirah’s accusation, JTA reported.
Samirah, who is Palestinian-American, was defeated as a Democratic member of Virginia’s House of Delegates during the recent Democratic primary.
As vulnerable Americans are continually deprived of services, they will be embittered when they believe that federal dollars are going to Israel or any other place outside our borders, or to domestic programs that do not help them.
Can they be blamed for feeling this way? They probably do not know that most American Jews vote for Democrats largely because of that party’s attention to domestic programs, which help us all.
Israel benefits from the federal government because of its support from both parties. Democrats consistently address social issues while Republicans ignore them, or the GOP even attempts to worsen conditions.
With their new powers, however narrow, Democrats are striving to improve conditions through the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and the social welfare legislation which is now down to $1.85 trillion, from $3.5 trillion. The legislation could be passed this week.
Americans who would then feel relief will have less reason to scapegoat anyone – namely, Israel and American Jews. The Jewish community here is vulnerable to scapegoating considering that most of us support Israel, with some of us openly lobbying for the Jewish state. Not to mention that Jews here are proportionately wealthier than many other groups, and some of our countrymen and women believe that any Jew who works at a low-paying job must be an eccentric millionaire.
The legislation will remove numerous stressors on our daily lives, though not nearly enough. Anyone whose most critical needs are met will feel less stressed economically, and perhaps will not identify so readily with the ever-persecuted Palestinians. If we begin spending $1.85 trillion over 10 years for child care, elder care and early childhood education, how does $1 billion for the Iron Dome missile-defense system stack up against funds for our domestic needs? The bipartisan infrastructure bill for roads, bridges and other transit projects – such as the new Hudson River rail tunnel linking New Jersey and Manhattan – is estimated to cost $1.2 trillion.
Pro-Arab activists, who consistently misrepresent Israel’s role in the Palestinian situation, is strong because of its numbers. If fewer Americans are concerned about the conflict, there will be less support for the so-called Palestinian cause. Which means fewer Americans to scapegoat Israel.
Of course, being a progressive does not mean opposing Israel. Rep. Ro Khanna, who has spoken for progressive Democrats on TV news programs, sent this writer an e-mail listing his support for nearly a half-dozen measures to aid Israel. He wrote that he is also working with Israel on its relationship to Silicon Valley, much of which is located in his congressional district centered in San Jose, California.
For those “progressives” who are committed to the Palestinian cause, I must wonder why they would want the domestic proposals to become reality. If these bills succeed, it could lead to their loss of influence. Poor Americans whose lives are improved by this could become less concerned with the Palestinians because their situations will differ more than they already do.
Palestinians can claim legitimate concerns, but in the long term their so-called champions in America will probably hurt them. Scapegoating helps nobody.
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist. He may be contacted via bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com