It’s over. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) just doesn’t understand that. Her antisemitism schtick no longer packs the same punch. People see through it now.
They recognize that the majority American opposition to the Israel government’s serial violence — enabled by United States government provided weapons, intelligence, and funding — is not a judgement about Jewish people. It is about opposing the rampant pursuit of property destruction and carnage, all undertaken on the American people’s dime.
In a Monday interview at Fox News, host Martha MacCallum asked Collins about an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) endorsement potentially making 44 percent of people less likely to vote for a candidate. In response, Collins declared, “I think this sadly reflects a rising antisemitism in our country.”
It should be noted that AIPAC is an Israel supporting organization, not a Jewish people supporting organization. Here is how the organization lays out its political mission succinctly at the home page of its website:
Got that? AIPAC is all about influencing US politics to ensure the US government’s relationship with the Israel government is “ironclad” and that the US provides “security assistance” and other aid to Israel. That is not a mission to support Jewish people. Indeed, it is a mission at odds with the views of many Jewish people in America and around the world who are appalled by the belligerent actions the Israel government has taken and continues to take with the support of its “ironclad” relationship with the US government and the apparently bottomless “security assistance” the US government provides.
Thus, Collins’s answer to the question about AIPAC is a non sequitur. Being opposed to AIPAC does not suggest opposition to Jewish people. Rather, it suggests opposition to the US government being bound to support the Israel government in that foreign government’s pursuits no matter how heinous those pursuits are.
Further, Collins’s answer flings an unfounded insult at many Americans, including many potential voters in her Senate race. She conflates antisemitism with opposition to AIPAC endorsements. The claim is false. Still, people tarred by Collins will nonetheless resent being labeled as having views long considered by many people to be among the most vile.
The only way Collins’s insult flinging makes sense is if she is using a linguistic trick like that being pushed by the US government and some state governments that classifies criticism of Israel as by definition “antisemitism.” Writing in May about a US House of Representatives resolution that was part of this effort in US government to redefine “antisemitism,” I warned that the effort itself was likely to help stir up the kind of views people ordinarily think of when they hear the term “antisemitism.” I wrote:
Among the greatest contributors to any increase in antisemitism in America under the commonly understood definition is probably the effort, including through the House resolution being considered this week, to conflate Jewish people with the Israel government. It is natural that many people will react negatively to many aspects of the Israel government, including its acts of repression and war targeting people in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, and beyond. Also objectionable to many Americans is the obsessive commitment of many US politicians, among them congressional leaders of both parties, to using US resources to advance the interests of the Israel government. Attempts to say that the Israel government, at times even deceptively called ‘the Jewish state,‘ is inextricably tied to people of Jewish faith or ancestry is a recipe for generating more old-time antisemitism among Americans.
Collins’s antisemitism schtick is an insulting fraud. But, she is not alone. Among American politicians there is a common tendency to say whatever they must, no matter how inane, to keep in line with the AIPAC-backed “ironclad” US support for Israel’s “national security.”
