T. Belman. I utterly reject these attacks on Trump because they are based on the assumption that he said or meant “disloyalty to America”. This assumption has no foundation.
He certainly didn’t mean “disloyalty to the Democratic Party”.
No one cared to speculate that he meant “disloyalty to the Jewish people” yet that is the appropriate take-away. Many pro-Israel supporters, Jews and Christians alike, have expressed similar thoughts. On balance, the vast majority of American Jews are not supporters of Israel.
AJC head pleads, ‘Please keep loyalty out of it,’ after president accuses Jews who vote for Democrats of being disloyal or ignorant, in latest round of his feud with Tlaib and Omar
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON — American Jewish leaders on Tuesday condemned US President Donald Trump after he accused Jews who support Democrats of “great disloyalty,” saying he was employing a dangerous anti-Semitic trope.
“It’s unclear who @POTUS is claiming Jews would be “disloyal” to, but charges of disloyalty have long been used to attack Jews,” tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, calling on the president to stop “using Jews as a political football.”
American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris called his comments “outrageous.”
“This is a free country. Jews aren’t a monolithic bloc, nor single-issue voters. Some will vote Democratic, others Republican. As Americans, that’s their right. Please keep loyalty out of it,” he said.
?@BernieSanders
Let me say this to the president: I am a proud Jewish person and I have no concerns about voting Democratic. And in fact, I intend to vote for a Jewish man to become the next president of the United States. https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1163905031806050310 …
“I think any Jewish people who would vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with President Klaus Iohannis of Romania.
Trump was commenting on the uproar in Washington over Israel’s barring of Democratic congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering the country due to their support for boycotting Israel.
Trump has repeatedly voiced his frustration over his unpopularity among American Jews, despite his close support for Israel and his steps to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there.
Indeed, more than 75 percent of American Jews voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, according to exit polls. That marked a four percentage point increase from the percentage of Jewish voters (71%) who pulled the lever for Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016.
And Jewish Democrats said Trump’s words, amounted to perpetuating an anti-Semitic notion that Jews have dual loyalty to America and Israel.
“This is yet another example of Donald Trump continuing to weaponize and politicize anti-Semitism,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“At a time when anti-Semitic incidents have increased — due to the president’s emboldening of white nationalism — Trump is repeating an anti-Semitic trope,” she continued. “If this is about Israel, then Trump is repeating a dual loyalty claim, which is a form of anti-Semitism. If this is about Jews being ‘loyal’ to him, then Trump needs a reality check. We live in a democracy, and Jewish support for the Republican Party has been halved in the past four years.”
Other Jewish Democratic operatives said that Trump’s latest comments were part of a long and pernicious pattern of anti-Semitic political leaders accusing Jews of lacking in loyalty.
“Jews have had a long history of being in countries where we are accused of being disloyal,” said Aaron Keyak, former head of the National Jewish Democratic Council and a veteran political operative.
“These sort of attacks are dangerous, reckless, and wrong. Just because President Trump is deeply unpopular in our community is no reason to slander us with echos of some of the most insidious attacks against our people. We’ve seen where this road has led before.”
Ann Lewis and Mark Mellman of Democratic Majority for Israel called it “one of the most dangerous, deadly accusations Jews have faced over the years. False charges of disloyalty over the centuries have led to Jews being murdered, jailed and tortured.”
Non-Jews, too, noted the connotations of Trump’s remarks. The former CBS anchor Dan Rather tweeted that they were bigoted. “Let’s be crystal clear,” he said. “When Pres. Trump says that Jews who vote for Democrats show ‘either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,’ he is summoning the forces of bigotry and anti-Semitism with all of its blood-stained history.”
?@DanRather
Let’s be crystal clear. When Pres. Trump says that Jews who vote for Democrats show “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” he is summoning the forces of bigotry and anti-Semitism with all of its blood-stained history.
Trump’s comments came after much of the US Jewish community and virtually all of Democratic Party has expressed outrage over Israel’s barring of Tlaib and Omar.
Omar and Tlaib, who have sparred with Trump over Israel and a number of other issues, said Monday that the US president pressured Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ban them. They followed by calling for the United States to cut aid to Israel until it halts settlement building and ensures equal rights for Palestinians.
While criticism of Trump’s “disloyalty” remarks were widespread within the US Jewish community, at least one Jewish group came to his defense.
“President Trump is right,” the Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted, “it shows a great deal of disloyalty to oneself to defend a party that protects/emboldens people that hate you for your religion.”
The liberal Mideast advocacy organization J Street, however, said it was the logical next step after the president’s bigoted attacks on other racial and ethnic minorities.
“It is dangerous and shameful for President Trump to attack the large majority of the American Jewish community as unintelligent and ‘disloyal,” said Logan Bayroff, the group’s director of communications. “But it is no surprise that the president’s racist, disingenuous attacks on progressive women of color in Congress have now transitioned into smears against Jews.”
@ Elyakim Joseph:
Then keep it in the bedroom. No conservatives aren’t trying to police the bedroom, they just don’t believe anyone should be forced to bake cakes for gay weddings, they believe in traditional marriage, that marriage is between one man and one woman. They don’t believe in giving legal sanction to people of the same sex “marrying” each other. Also that children are best off if raised in a household that consists of a married mother and father. They don’t believe taxpayers should be forced to pay for abortion and birth control. Do what you will but take personal responsibility for the consequences. Don’t force your perversion on everyone else, least of all children as we see with drag queen story time and child drag queens dancing in front of gay men.
@ Buzz of the Orient:
It does get frustrating at times when he overplays his hand and says too much just at the point when his and our enemies are destroying themselves. That being said, this is only a big deal with Jews who hate Trump anyway. Politically conservative Jews know exactly what he meant. It should be obvious to anyone remotely intellectually honest, that Trump has a great deal of love for the Jewish people and Israel.
Ted, I totally agree. All of these Jewish democrats who are now opening their big mouths to attack the president, have their lips sealed when it comes to Omar and Tlaib. They are frauds and YES disloyal to the Jewish people. There’s a reason President Trump has an 80% approval rating among Israelis while almost the reverse with American Jews. American Jews primary allegiance is to the democrat party and progressivism. Why else were they able to overlook Obama’s friendship with Wright and now look the other way regarding the “squad”? Their silence and continued support and funding of the democrat party amounts to complicity with anti-Semitism and the left’s war on Israel.
@ Ron:
The Dem leadership isn’t just letting it slide, they’re taking that side!
As passive aggressive as it might be, they’re not hiding the intention and have all but given the squad free reign to spread the most blatant of lies.
In some ways it might be a smart move for them. . . their primary voters will be young people. . .
there’s been a great many of us ringing the alarm about the the vast antisemitism on campuses, even at bloody israeli universities. The 90s was when I dealt with the brunt of it myself – the same demands to disown my orthodox relatives, to denounce Israel and much of these demands coming from other Jews.
Which is much of the point of how so many groups operate.. if they can’t shame you then it’s peer pressure and isolation when that fails they inevitably lean on attacks; verbal, personal and sometimes physical.
But the reaction from the community both locally and national organizations was to ignore, deny, or disown it themselves. disown it – these children that went on to continue to recruit others in the name of being Jews.
Trips to Israel had no effect because what they needed was a persistent network to rely on. Even as little as having local homes to visit for Jewish holidays or even attending events with more secular families. As it’s the isolation they’ll face on campuses that will get to them more than anything.
The Republican party is much the same way. Hence, they still don’t understand why Trump won nor likely to understand why he’ll win again. They’re terribly afraid of the walkaway crowd. You see the legacy republicans – the swamp and rinos almost in competition to hold onto traditionalist values when conservatives represent so much more than that. They’re also more resistant towards recognizing the need to attract and more importantly retain youth.
but maybe we’ve just come to the time where neither party is a good match. While I might count myself as a conservative libertarian.. the libertarian ‘party’ is a joke as most of the third parties tend to be. The primary parties themselves try too hard to be one thing. . . so they tend to engage in horseshoe theory.
You know it’s funny how many on the right supposedly despise identity politics yet they easily get distracted in those kind of fights themselves. They far too frequently get caught up in trying to police the bedroom and other lives of their members as much as that of the left.
but I digress.
Personally, I tend to believe it’s more that we don’t get to air our dirty laundry as much with other. The young people don’t anything more than our petty tribalism in the U.S. as anything but the divides between orthodox, conservative and reform.
I know anti-zionism is rooted in the bitterness of some families that faced rejection when Israel was restricted in the numbers they could allow vs the resources they had. For others, it was merely the cause and effect of the pseudo intellectual circles they found themselves in as their families grew more secular… and for many others, it not anti-zionism per se that leads the way but the unspoken grudges or resentments against one another… for a wide variety of reasons.
My family settled in the states long before the holocaust. where we came from doesn’t even get a footnote in American textbooks. be it judea or where the first recorded history of my family began in the 14th century and most people completely oblivious to Jews even being in the region, even most Jews. So by the time we got to the states, first sephardic, then ther was the assorted mix of others and us, then the eastern euro, then the holocaust. I inherited a few biases pased down but now, again,w e’re mainstreamed.. where if one doesn’t present themselves as just a silent link in the chain then its being ousted from the so called ‘Jewish’ community.. ever the per pressure, ever the resentments that build up from multiple sources. We joke about how much Jews hate each other.. but it’s has a truth, there are a lot of unaired grievances there. a million things one dare not say. . . for much of the same fears of accusation to loyalties or authenticity or the threat of isolation. . we all bend towards what’s available to us.
this among so many other things.. we have compartmentalized our lives so much that we don’t exist as a whole being, as one community. my thoughts are lost between an analogy about hilbert space but thinking if schrodinger’s cat might fit better more.. that we’ve developed such separate identities for each place we go at work, at school, at home, at temple, with spouses/partners, friends, family.. when it’s all an illusion.
it’s impossible not to live as a hypocrite in some way. It is the price I pay in everything I am. But like dealing with childhood bullies, it’s they, that recognized me that I never had that crisis of faith, of identity, or ever needed to question the validity of zionism… those that have wished to do me harm always knew.
but as many would suggest If we really wanted to get rid of the squad, we should just give them an overpriced, undeserved bat mitzvah. . . we’d have a greater chance of never hearing from them again.
I agree with Ted. It takes a warped mind to misconstrue what the president meant. The Dem leadership can’t seem to take action against antisemitism in their own party so they just let it slide. I’m a Jewish guy who voted for Dems for many years but antisemitism drove me away from that party. It was bad enough 13 years ago when Israel was forced to invade Lebanon to stop Hezbollah’s rocket barrage but its far worse now.
I final word, my dad said, Wolf, etc., are court Jews, or Uncle Tom Jews, they are! Trump is the only president who didn’t pay lip service! He moved it to yerushalyim! The other president’s were liars! He did that, and told,”the squad!, where they can go! Reagan, even castigated is, in 1983, regarding Lebanon! Not the Donald!
Here’s the thing. First off, the fact that they lie, and pretend, that Islam is not hateful,”religion,” sickens me! Call a spade a spade! Dan rather is a privileged one, a reader! Yet knows nothing! It is a political agenda, dressed up like a,”religion!” What nauseated me is how, the women’s movement, has someone who wears a shroud,, and another on, who kisses, an ass who basically allows, genital mutilations, honour(excuse) my Canadian spelling, wtf?
President Trump is right. The JINOs ignore antisemitism coming from the DemocRats while attacking the most pro Jewish and pro Israel president. The same JINOs were silent when Clinton had the arch terrorist Arafat in the White House more often than all the real heads of state and never criticized Obamamzer with his anti Israel policies and his financing Iran’s nuclear program despite their threats to vaporize Israel.
These JINOs need to open their eyes and smell the stench of antisemitism coming from the DemocRat Party.
I have been thinking for quite some time that Jews are stupid to continue to vote Democratic. I have been a registered D all my voting life and I am just fed up with the party. I need a real third party.
It’s always surprising anew, to see the massive mount of drek strewn around the base of the Democrat Party, that they can always pick up and smear everyone whom they desire.
My opinion is that Trumps comment , taking in context, and considering the unbreakable, ever increasing alliance between the U.S. and Israel, meant that the US Jews were disloyal to their fellow Israeli Jews by voting overwhelmingly Democrat, a party always trying to minimise that alliance other than lip-service, and which contains suddenly, overwhelmingly, influential Jew-Haters, who openly try to damage not only the loyal, unshakable alliance, but Israel itself.,
As for the accusation of “Ignorance”, No need to comment on that as its so glaringly, pitifully, obvious. You could likely find Democrat Jews who never heard of either Israel or Jerusalem…. and don’t know what “l’chaim” means..
Dan Rather has TDS. Every day is Nov 9, 2016 for Halie Soifer. And the Jews who willfully misinterpret the message to be an anti Semitic trope think their audience is stupid enough to believe that. It is embarrassing to think there are Jewish people who think the way the democratic operatives think. Thank G-D they do not live in Israel.
I agree with Ted.
This is a tempest in a teapot. Even the libtarddems will get tired of blathering about it, when the next meme comes along. Besides, “antisemitic” doesn’t start with “R”, as the three past and current anti-trump narratives do (Russia, Racism, Recession).
Jews vote for Democrats for a reason. It is for a FORM admittedly a corrupted form of socialism against capitalism
Trump was obviously talking about loyalty to Israel and to Jews.
The White Nationalism being raised by all now especially the BBC is a slur, nationalism today means border and culture. The White is a slur.
Yet read Alex Jones and inside Jones even his shouting demeanour is violence I would say, from Jones came Joe Biggs Proud Boys against Antifa.
This has similarities to wars between Nazis and Stalinists in Germany.
There is this red baiting aspect I would say to Jones and Breitbart, hence also to Trump.
In Lithuania Church led massacre of communists first, then in huge numbers the Jews.
Trump is a friend of Jews but can also be dangerous because of links I quote.
Above all and in the end decisive is anti science totally so…works on impulse
Personally, I think Trump should have kept his mouth shut. The “Squad of Four”, especially Tlaib and Omar, were doing a good enough job of hanging themselves, and had he kept quiet they would have been emboldened to not only become more outrageous, and not only sink themselves but would probably pull the Democrat Party down with them. Until Trump made those comments I could have imagined Jexodus becoming more successful, but now I’m just shaking my head in frustration because even as far away as I am, I can just FEEL the alienation taking effect.