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January 22, 2023
Key Takeaways:
- The best way to advocate for Israel under the current circumstances is to speak out against policies of Israel's government that contravene our values and weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship while distinguishing the government of Israel from the State of Israel, whose safety and security we continue to support.
- Criticism of Israeli policies, even criticism that is unfounded, is not antisemitic unless expressed using antisemitic tropes.
- Republicans will use the debt ceiling crisis to force Democrats to choose between a global economic crisis or draconian spending cuts. Democrats should not give an inch and should use other available tools to raise the debt ceiling--if necessary, without Republican cooperation.
- The Republican Party does not share our values and is incapable of serious governance. We need to call the GOP out for the threat to our democracy that it is and not treat the GOP as a normal political party.
Read to the end for what you may have missed last week, corrections, fun stuff, and upcoming events, including a discussion of the U.S.-Israel relationship on March 19 that you won't want to miss.
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Hi Steve,
The latest line from our right-wing friends is that if we are pro-Israel, we have to respect the wishes of the Israeli electorate, and if they elect a government whose policies we disagree with, we should mute our criticism.
Such a view misunderstands Israeli democracy and what it means to support Israel. Under Israel’s parliamentary democracy, positions of the ruling coalition do not necessarily reflect the views of a majority of the Knesset, let alone a majority of Israelis. For example, most Israelis do not support massive subsidies to the ultra-Orthodox, nor do they support the Orthodox monopoly on marriage licenses. But more often than not, Israel’s ruling coalition depends on support from one or more religious parties, which forces the positions of the democratically elected government of Israel to deviate from positions held by most Israelis and most Knesset members.
To some extent, this is true of every democracy, but Israel's coalition system exacerbates it. Opposing any policy of the Israeli government does not necessarily mean we are disagreeing with the judgment of the majority of Israelis. And even if we were, we would still have the right and the obligation to speak out against policies that weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship.
If you've been arguing for decades that the bedrock of the U.S.-Israel relationship is shared values, then you now have two choices: You can advocate for Israel by denying what the entire world can see, or you can advocate for Israel by distinguishing Israeli government policies that you oppose from the State of Israel (and its safety and security), which you continue to support.
Some well-meaning right-wing Jewish and pro-Israel organizations model the first approach by deeming harsh or inaccurate criticism of Israel as antisemitic and attempting to shut it down, especially on campus, prompting Rob Eshman to ask when Zionists became snowflakes. If we are confident in our support for the State of Israel, we should not fear to debate criticism on the merits.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and her bipartisan delegation visiting Israel modeled the second approach by refusing to meet with members of Itmar Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party and Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party, both of which are part of the extreme right-wing segment of Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition.
Defending or ignoring the indefensible weakens our ability to advocate for continued aid to Israel based on Israel's legitimate security needs, which do not vanish when Israel's government adopts policies antithetical to our values. If we want to preserve and strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, we should advocate for the values that underlie the relationship, many of which, as Martin Raffel explains, are not shared by ministers in Bibi's coalition. We should oppose efforts by our right-wing friends to label such advocacy "antisemitic" even if we disagree with any particular criticism (unless the criticism is expressed using antisemitic tropes).
Tom Friedman is right: "Israel and the U.S. are friends. But today, one party in this friendship — Israel — is changing its fundamental character. President Biden, in the most caring but clear way possible, needs to declare that these changes violate America’s interests and values and that we are not going to be Netanyahu’s useful idiots and just sit in silence." Friedman's advice for Biden is good advice for everyone who cares about Israel and its relationship with the United States.
Supporting our values means opposing the Republican Party. Friedman's advice is good advice at home too. One party, the Republican Party, is seeking to change the fundamental character of the United States. The GOP does not control the White House or the Senate, but it controls the House, and we have to ask ourselves if we want the GOP running the country in two years the way it is running the House now.
House Republicans are undermining and mocking our democratic institutions at every turn. Heather Cox Richardson reports that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), "who was removed from committee assignments in the last Congress for her racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as her encouragement of violence against Democrats, has a spot on the Homeland Security Committee. Such spots are usually filled by those with experience in either the military or intelligence, neither of which she has. And security is an odd fit for her: voters in her district tried to get her disqualified from running in 2022 because of her participation in the attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election."
Richardson notes that the House Oversight and Accountability Committee now includes Greene, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and other far-right election deniers. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is back on committees after threatening Democrats with violence.
McCarthy did not move to censure or expel serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-NY). Instead, as Marc Elias writes, "without any sense of irony, he appointed the fraudster to the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space and Technology." Why? Because Santos "is not a party outcast; he is its perfect embodiment. He lies with ease and adds a splash of not-so-subtle racism for the party faithful"; "the hallmark of the modern Republican Party is its shamelessness."
Democrats should not let Republicans hold the economy hostage. In a sane world (the world every country except the U.S. and Denmark live in), we would not have a debt limit that required legislative action to increase. The debt limit pertains to paying debts for spending Congress has already incurred. Whatever "fiscal responsibility" means, it at least means paying lawfully owed debt.
The debt ceiling limit is destructive, duplicative, and dumb. Democrats should abolish the debt ceiling as soon as they have the power to do so but until then, the GOP has another game to play with our economy.
Republicans will demand massive and irresponsible spending cuts in return for not tanking the global economy by triggering a debt crisis. Democrats should not give an inch. As Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said, "In exchange for not crashing the United States economy, you get nothing. You don't get a cookie. You don't get to be treated like you're the second coming of LBJ. You're just a person doing the bare minimum of not intentionally screwing over your constituents for insane reasons."
As President Biden has said many times, "raising the debt ceiling is not a negotiation; it is an obligation of this country and its leaders to avoid economic chaos."
Insider's Ayelet Sheffey provides background on the looming debt ceiling crisis and Paul Krugman describes measures Democrats could take to raise the debt ceiling without GOP cooperation. Some might seem like financial gimmicks, but "if it takes gimmickry to frustrate the schemes of destructive extremists empowered by a legal quirk, and thereby avoid financial catastrophe, so be it."
It is long past time to stop treating the Republican Party as a normal party with points of view worthy of our respect. I know that sounds harsh. We are supposed to listen to both sides, consider other points of view, and let the marketplace of ideas do its thing. John Stuart Mill all the way, baby. But is there no line that cannot be crossed? Should we take flat-earthers or Holocaust deniers seriously? Anti-vaxxers? Economic illiterates? Moon truthers?
I am not arguing for censorship; I am arguing for not taking unserious ideas seriously, regardless of whether those who espouse them are sincere. This requires judgment, which serious people are capable of exercising.
Trump won in 2016 in part because the media was obsessed with treating both sides seriously instead of reporting that one side was wrong. As the saying goes, a hack journalist reports that one side says it's raining and one side says it's not. A good journalist opens the window, finds out who's right, and reports the truth.
Moreover, democracy is premised on the principle that the party that loses today can win tomorrow. We saw on January 6, 2021, that the GOP rejects this principle. Not only did the leader of the Republican Party incite an insurrection, but hours later, 147 Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, voted to overturn the lawful election instead of reaffirming our commitment to the rule of law and our rejection of political violence.
As Robert Hubbell explains, "most days, the media discusses the Republican Party as a legitimate participant in American democracy. It is not. Occasionally, the veneer of its respectability falls away, and we see it for what it is: An organization that uses violence and intimidation as political tools, has adopted deliberate falsehood as the lingua franca of politics, and peddles dangerous conspiracy theories to dupe, defraud, and incite its gullible base."
Yet none of this is new. Nearly 11 years ago, political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein wrote that the Republican Party "is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."
Shame on us for refusing to listen, and shame on us if we continue to treat the Republican Party as a legitimate party capable of responsible governance. It is a threat to our democracy and the values that make us proud Americans. That's not a truth we want to hear, but it is the truth.
In Case You Missed It:
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Nadav Tamir explains that the Palestinians are not waging lawfare or political terrorism against Israel by requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice regarding the “prolonged Israeli occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory."
- If you're confused about Harvard's decision to offer a fellowship to Ken Roth, a human rights advocate it had previously rejected, read this.
- National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Israel and the West Bank.
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Glenn Kessler analyzes the specious reasoning behind McCarthy's attempts to remove Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the Intelligence Committee, concluding that McCarthy's actions "appear based on figments of imagination" and awarding McCarthy four Pinocchios (the maximum).
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Last week's newsletter explained the hypocrisy behind McCarthy's attempts to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the Foreign Affairs Committee. This week, Dean Obeidallah makes a convincing case that McCarthy is trying to remove Omar not because of Omar's alleged antisemitism but because of the GOP's real Islamophobia.
Correction. In last week's newsletter, I linked to an article by Doug Bloomfield and incorrectly identified him. He is a former AIPAC legislative director. I knew that, but my brain forgot to tell my fingers. I appreciate when readers bring errors to my attention because even if you disagree with my opinions, I want you to be confident that you can rely on my facts--thanks to Jessica Brown and Fred Siegman for careful reading!
Tweets of the Week. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) and Rebmasel.
Twitter Thread of the Week. Shai Franklin.
Video Clip of the Week. You think Mick Jagger can move at his age? Watch Fred Astaire at 70.
Best Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Speech. Jeff Beck (Yardbirds).
Upcoming Event. Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania (DJOP) presents a free event on Zoom: "US-Israel relations: The View from Jerusalem and DC" on Sunday, March 19, at 10:00 am CT with panelists Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), Nimrod Novik (former senior advisor on foreign policy to the late Shimon Peres and currently a member of the Executive Committee of Commanders for Israel’s Security), DJOP Board member Martin Raffel (previously senior vice president and director of the Task Force on Israel, World Jewry & International Human Rights at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs), and Steve Sheffey (me). RSVP here to get the link.
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