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October 9, 2023
Key Takeaways from a longer-than-usual weekly newsletter:
- No matter what our disagreements with Israel's current government, we must support Israel in its time of need. We must unequivocally condemn the brutal attack launched by Hamas, for which there is no justification and to which Israel has the right and the duty to respond with as much force as necessary. We must stand with Israel.
- The Biden administration and leading Democrats issued strong, unequivocal statements supporting Israel and did not ask Israel to exercise restraint in defending its citizens.
- Republicans falsely accused President Biden of responsibility for the Hamas attacks. None of the $6 billion earmarked for humanitarian assistance in the deal with Iran to free American hostages has been accessed by anyone.
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Two weeks ago, 198 House Republicans--90%--drafted, brought to the floor, and voted for legislation that included cutting aid to Israel by 30%, which would have violated our Memorandum of Understanding with Israel. Democrats unanimously opposed it and it failed despite overwhelming GOP support. Your budget is your values.
- AIPAC has yet to rescind its endorsements of Republicans who voted to cut aid to Israel by 30% (not restrict or condition, but cut). If this vote was not germane to AIPAC's "single issue," what is?
- Republican dysfunction threatens our ability to fully support Israel at this critical time. In addition to blocking senior Pentagon appointments and our next Ambassador to Israel (the post remains vacant), Republicans threw the House into chaos by ousting Kevin McCarthy and leaving the House unable to function until the GOP chooses his replacement.
- Democrats were right not to save McCarthy and the Republicans from themselves but some pundits assume as a given that Republicans will behave like children (not incorrect) but draw the incorrect conclusion that the answer is not to vote them out but to expect Democrats to come to the rescue. If Congress does not do all it can now to support Israel, it will be because the GOP paralyzed the House. For those keeping score at home, until last week, no party had ever voted out its Speaker.
- The next Speaker of the House will likely have a history of antisemitism but the antisemitic records of the two leading candidates to replace McCarthy have not been raised as an issue by any Republican members of Congress.
- Next week we return to our usual weekly Sunday morning schedule..
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week, fun stuff, and upcoming events.
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Hi Steve,
This was a devastating weekend. I remember listening to news about the Yom Kippur War on the radio 50 years ago, but the images we saw this weekend, thanks to social media--people dragged from cars, families held hostage, bodies on the street--will never leave us, especially those of us who have family and friends in Israel. The Yom Kippur War was a military attack; this was a premeditated terror attack aimed at civilians, including women, children, the elderly, and teens at a music festival. It was barbaric. On Simchat Torah, more Jews were murdered in a single day than on any day since the Holocaust.
Those of us who want peace, who are progressives, who want a two-state solution that allows Jews and Palestinians sovereignty and dignity, must condemn this attack by Hamas in the strongest terms. There is no justification for terrorism, no justification for brutally murdering and abducting civilians, especially women, children, and the elderly.
The more than 700 deaths in Israel from this surprise attack are the equivalent of more than 24,000 American deaths: more than eight 9/11s. Many in the U.S. did not know anyone murdered or injured on 9/11. Nearly everyone in Israel knows someone murdered, abducted, or injured on Simchat Torah. Now Israel is at war, and it is not a war of choice.
This newsletter has emphasized for years the importance of distinguishing the State of Israel from the government of Israel. No matter how much we oppose the current government's judicial overhaul and moves toward de facto annexation of the West Bank--both of which can and must be reversed--we cannot confuse the government, whose leaders we might oppose, with the State, which we should continue to support. The Biden administration is right to continue its unequivocal support of Israel's safety and security, which transcend any particular Israeli government or leader.
President Biden said on October 7, "The United States unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, and I made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the Government and people of Israel. Terrorism is never justified. Israel has a right to defend itself and its people...My Administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering." Biden and Vice President Harris reiterated these points yesterday in calls with Netanyahu and Israeli President Herzog.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) issued strong statements of support for Israel, as did every Jewish Democratic member of Congress.
What do these statements from Democratic leadership have in common besides unequivocal support for Israel? None asked Israel to exercise restraint. Israel, like all sovereign states, has a duty and an obligation to keep its citizens safe from terror.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III yesterday announced the deployment of U.S. forces to the region and that "the United States government will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions. The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days."
Asking Israel to exercise restraint is like asking firefighters to take it easy while arsonists continue to light fires. Imagine if thousands of rockets were fired on our families from Mexico or Canada or if our relatives were murdered or taken hostage and the perpetrators remained at large, ready to strike again. We would not urge our government to exercise restraint. We would demand that they stop the attacks by any means necessary as fast as possible. Those asking "both sides" to exercise restraint are engaged in moral obfuscation. They should be demanding that Israel's neighbors forcefully condemn Hamas. There is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas.
Alon Pinkas writes that October 7 is a date that will live in infamy in Israel. It should live in infamy throughout the civilized world.
We must not confuse the entire Palestinian people with Hamas. It's antisemitic when people blame all Jews for the actions of some Jews, and it's wrong for us to blame all Palestinians for the actions of Hamas. Some, perhaps many, innocent Palestinians in Gaza will suffer and die during Israel's attempts to remove the threat to its citizens by Hamas. The blame rests with Hamas.
No Israeli government can say to its citizens, "we know who did this and we know where they are, but we can't do anything about it because they are operating out of densely populated areas, so my fellow nine million citizens, you will have to live in terror and fear forever."
Contrary to those who wish to impose a false equivalence on the conflict, while blameless Palestinians will die, it will be because Israel is targeting Hamas operatives who knew that this would happen and chose, for their own reasons, to put innocent Palestinians at risk. Israel is not going to go into Gaza and abduct and murder women, children, and the elderly. Its objective will be to eliminate the terrorist threat to its citizens.
The moral responsibility lies with Hamas, but any innocent Palestinian death is tragic, and while we might not know their names, their families will be as devastated as ours.
Republicans are falsely accusing the Biden administration of responsibility for the latest conflict. The latest GOP myth is that Biden's recent deal with Iran gave Iran money it then used to fund Hamas's attacks against Israel. Putting aside that this coordinated attack was in the works months before Biden's deal was negotiated, Jennifer Griffin reminds us that none of the $6 billion has left Qatari accounts. See also Amy Spitalnick. Secretary of State Blinken confirmed yesterday that "as of now, not a single dollar has been spent from that account."
This is the classic GOP playbook: Run with a debunked talking point, hope that people have forgotten it was debunked, and tie it to a new situation. None of this money can ever go to Hamas through Iran. If you want the details, I've got them.
Perhaps Republicans don't want us to remember that they voted to cut aid to Israel two weeks ago. On September 29, 198 Republicans--90% of all House Republicans--voted for HR 5525, a so-called continuing resolution that would have cut aid to Israel by nearly 30%. Republicans wrote the bill without Democratic input, brought it to the floor, and voted for it even though it violated our Memorandum of Understanding with Israel. It failed because 21 Republicans and 211 Democrats voted against it. No Democrats voted for it.
Many of these hypocritical Republicans are now issuing statements of support for Israel. Words are nice. Words can be important. But your budget is your values, and two weeks ago, the GOP showed us what it values--and it wasn't Israel.
It didn't get much attention in part because it happened on a Friday, always a good day to do bad things, in part because it failed, and in part because too many of us want to cling to the myth that despite its other problems, despite deleting support for a two-state solution from its platform, despite the antisemitism rampant within its ranks, the Republican Party can be trusted to look out for Israel when the going gets tough. Did you miss that vote? I wrote about the details and provided receipts here. (AIPAC has yet to rescind its endorsements of the Republicans who voted not to slash aid to Israel. If this is not germane to their one issue, I don't know what is.)
You might be wondering why I didn't include Republican statements supporting Israel alongside Democratic statements of support. Voting to cut aid to 30% leads me to question their sincerity, and as Simon Rosenberg points out, Republicans are holding up the appointment of 300 senior Pentagon officials and the next Ambassador to Israel: "Until Republicans staff our military, allow an Ambassador to Israel to be appointed and elect a Speaker no one should listen to a single thing they say about the attack on Israel."
The Biden administration wants to send more aid to Israel but the House of Representatives might be paralyzed pending Republican efforts to elect a new Speaker. Having a major political party incapable or unwilling to responsibly govern has real-life consequences.
Republicans have no good choices for Speaker. It took them 15 votes to elect Kevin McCarthy Speaker and he lasted 269 days (24.54 Scaramuccis), becoming the first Speaker in history to be ousted.
Josh Marshall points out that "the idea that Democrats should have bailed out McCarthy is a codicil of the larger logic of DC punditry in which Republican bad behavior/destruction is assumed, a baseline like weather, and Democrats managing the consequences of that behavior is a given. It’s part of DC being hardwired for the GOP." In other words, it's taken as a given that Republicans will behave like children and therefore Democrats have an obligation to save Republicans from themselves.
Greg Sargent explains why Democrats were right not to save McCarthy. If you're sick of the government constantly facing debt ceiling limits, government shutdowns, and leadership fights, there's an easy answer: vote Republicans out of the majority.
Both parties have shortcomings, but the Republican Party is far and away the biggest problem. This is not even close to "both sides." David Leonhardt writes that "tens of millions of Republican voters have embraced beliefs that are simply wrong: that Obama was born in Kenya, that Donald Trump was cheated out of re-election, that Covid vaccines don’t work, that human beings aren’t causing climate change. A crowd of Republican-aligned protesters violently attacked the Capitol in 2021, assaulting police officers and causing several deaths. Prominent Republican politicians, including Trump, have spoken positively about that attack and more generally about political violence." That's not normal.
The next Speaker will likely have a history of antisemitism. I don't know who it will be, but the entire House leadership team, from which the next Speaker might emerge, has histories of antisemitism. Plenty of other House Republicans do too. I haven't written as much about them because my goal was to contrast the most powerful Republicans with the most powerful Democrats (no one in Democratic leadership has any history of antisemitism). The leading Republican contenders du jour, Reps. Steve "David Duke without the baggage" Scalise (R-LA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), have histories of antisemitism. Trump endorsed Jordan, an endorsement that anyone with a scintilla of integrity would reject.
Kevin McCarthy and his allies don't like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). Yet neither McCarthy, his allies, or anyone in the Republican caucus has called Gaetz out for his antisemitism. Why would they? Antisemitism is woven into the fabric of today's GOP and within the GOP, it's not a disqualification for any office, including the highest office in the land. To be clear, antisemitism is not the only for us to be concerned about Gaetz (currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual misconduct, campaign finance violations, taking bribes, and using drugs) and Jordan (numerous allegations of ignoring sexual abuse). Scalise does not appear to have done anything illegal, but nobody's perfect.
The Republican Party is infected with antisemitism straight to the top. I get it. We don't want to hear it because we'd rather not face reality. We'd rather live in a world where it doesn't matter when it comes to antisemitism and Israel which party is in power. We'd rather that today's political world was the world we lived in 20 years ago. But times change. It's time to stop pretending otherwise. It's time to ask the Jewish institutions that purport to represent us to start acting and speaking accordingly.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. In the last sentence of the fourth bullet point of last week's newsletter, the word "to" was missing. The first period in the second bullet point should have been a comma. In the fourth paragraph of the body of the newsletter, the word "that" was repeated twice in a row. I misspelled Dianne Feinstein's first name as "Diane." Rep. Don Bacon is from Nebraska, not Nevada. Thanks to the careful readers who brought these errors to my attention.
In Case You Missed It:
- Letter from 20 Senate Democrats regarding a possible normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia facilitated by the U.S. It's a good letter, but a Saudi deal is now on the back-burner. Many have mocked Secretary of State John Kerry's belief that Israel will never have true peace with the Arab world absent a two-state solution. Some find it inconvenient that the Israel-Palestinian must be resolved and wish that normalization agreements with other Arab countries would make the problem magically go away. The real world says differently.
- Prime Minister Netanyahu's coalition partners are proceeding with de facto annexation of the West Bank. That's bad news for Israeli democracy and, as Amir Tibon explains, good news for Vladimir Putin. Tibon and his family were held trapped near Gaza for 12 hours until they were rescued by Israeli soldiers.
Tweets of the Week. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Michael Harriot.
Nikki Haley Mockery of the Week. Andy Ostroy and Josh Malina.
Twitter Thread of the Week. Anna Caprara.
Video Clips of the Week. Confrontation between Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz on the House floor and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT).
This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved 2022 and 2023 Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder. If someone forwarded this to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
My most popular Times of Israel posts are How Not To Define Antisemitism and Pro-Israel Or Pro-Bibi? I periodically update my Medium posts on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism. You can read my most recent effort to define "pro-Israel" here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
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