10 February 21 • 2019
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it looks like she is happy to bait her 
critics, even if it means ignoring 
how her words will be taken as dog 
whistles. It’
s a play straight out of the 
Trumpian handbook: Called insensi-
tive or racist, Trump will deny that he 
is either. And then he will defiantly 
press the same buttons (“Pocahontas! 
Caravans! Fine people on both 
sides!”).
You can plead innocence the first 
time you say something offensive 
or play with a stereotype, I suppose. 
Keep doing it and it looks like a fea-
ture, not a bug.
I’
ll concede that it is a little about 
the Benjamins. Political power is 
expressed in America through money, 
and supporters of Israel — Jews and 
non-Jews — have been supportive 
and strategic in deploying their 
resources. But it is not only about 
the money and saying otherwise — 
reducing the complexity of a cause to 
mere dollars and cents and ignoring 
the context in which you say it — is 
what gets you into bigoted territory.
The pro-Israel lobby isn’
t hyp-
notizing anybody. Nor is it bribing 
them to betray their own beliefs. It 
supports sympathetic candidates 
as any good interest group would 
and ignores those it doesn’
t see as 
friends. You know, like Emily’
s List. 
Or MoveOn.org. Or any of the inter-

est groups that donated thousands to 
Omar’
s own congressional campaign. 
I doubt Omar would say her views 
line up with, for example, the Service 
Employees International Union only 
because they donated to her cam-
paign.
The Democratic candidates who 
voted against the anti-BDS bill didn’
t 
wake up from an AIPAC-induced 
trance. They looked at a changing 
electoral landscape and felt they 
would gain more by opposing the bill 
than voting for it. That’
s politics.
Yes, money distorts the calculus. 
Our politics and country would 
probably be better off if campaigning 
wasn’
t a never-ending money chase. 
But Omar’
s insistence that but for the 
grace of AIPAC politicians would take 
her side on Palestine is uninformed 
and reductionary. Maybe that’
s not 
anti-Semitism, but it is nothing to be 
proud of. ■

Andrew Silow-Carroll is JTA’
s Editor in Chief. 

Previously he served as editor in chief and 

CEO of the New Jersey Jewish News and 

wrote an award-winning weekly column in the 

Times of Israel. He was also the managing 

editor of the Forward newspaper, editor of 

the Washington Jewish Week, senior editor 

of Moment magazine, and a reporter for the 

Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The major weapon — make no 
mistake— is BDS, a frontal attack 
on the Jewish people.
BDS support is making strong 
inroads in the new U.S. Congress 
and high schools as well as univer-
sities.
We repeatedly hear the term 
“BDS” and may ignore the chal-
lenge we face. Here is a comment 
from Alan Dershowitz in the 
American Thinker. For those who 
have not followed this issue, Alan 
Dershowitz compares what is going 
on today to the Nazi boycott of 
Jewish goods in the 1930s and the 
Arab boycott in the 1950s/1960s. 
“Now it takes on a new name and 
a new phrase, but it is the same old 
poison,” he writes. “It is anti-Se-
mitic, anti-Zionist, anti-human 
rights, anti-intellectual, anti-sci-
ence, anti-negotiation, anti-peace, 
anti-compromise, and anti-Pal-
estinian workers when they are 
denied opportunities to work.”

Some components of BDS are 
academic boycotts of Israel, pro-
moting business boycotts of com-
panies doing business with Israel, 
shouting down pro-Israel speakers 
and denying pro-Israel speakers the 
opportunity to speak.
Under the guise of the BDS dis-
ease, individuals and organizations 
are masquerading as free speech 
enthusiasts and human rights advo-
cates to disguise their Jew hatred. 
What can you do to stem this 
tide of modern-day Jew-hatred?
You can write the CEO and 
regents of your alma mater, your 
local school board, your local 
media, and your senators and rep-
resentatives to help turn the nega-
tive direction of those that recently 
voted against the BDS resolution 
and against Israel.
It is time for you to stand for 
Israel and the Jewish people. 

— Ed Kohl

West Bloomfield

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