Jews and the Republican Noise Machine

The right-wing freak show has been on a long campaign to turn Jews away from the Democratic party by beating the "bad for Israel" drum. In the 2004 Presidential campaign, they sent emissaries to small midwestern synagogues (like the one my parents attend) where they claimed to congregants that John Kerry was a friend of the Palestinians and a foe of Israel. That strategy did manage to peel off a few Jews in 2004. But in 2006, 88 percent of the Jewish vote went to Democratic candidates.

My father-in-law subscribes to a conservative Jewish magazine called Commentary that has become the mouthpiece for this "bad for Israel" campaign. This weekend, we were over at Sarah's parents' house, and I read the latest Commentary cover story: "Jews, Muslims, and Democrats."

As you can imagine, the article attempts to tie Democrats to Islamic extremists, and explicitly claims that a vote for a Democrat is a vote against the "safety and security of Israel."

Not only was this article offensive, but it was offensive and POORLY WRITTEN.

The excerpt below discusses the successful 2006 candidacy of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress. In it, the author makes great hay (three whole paragraphs!) of the fact that Ellison was affiliated with the anti-Semetic Nation of Islam during his college years. Then, there are two sentences that conceed that he apologized, explained, and won overwhelming support from his Jewish constituency. But that recuperation is quickly whitewashed by a paragraph that conflates Ellison's candidacy ("He is not alone") with others in the Democratic party who "express an uninhibited hostiliy toward the Jewish state."

Utterly ridiculous. So goddamn offensive.

Commentary - 1/07 ...Ellison wrote a letter to the Minnesota Jewish community-relations council in which he admitted that as a young man he “did not adequately scrutinize the positions and statements” of the Nation of Islam, acknowledged that they “were and are anti-Semitic,” and declared that “I should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did.” On the strength of this and similar statements he proceeded to win endorsements from the American Jewish World, a “progressive” local paper, and the even more “progressive” Minneapolis Star Tribune. Both the ease with which Ellison was able to glide through this controversy and the remarkable lack of discomfort his candidacy appeared to cause among his fellow Democrats point to the larger significance of his election. For the simple fact is that in certain respects he is not alone: the past decade or so has seen the formation of a group of 40 to 50 Democratic Congressmen who, in varying degrees of intensity, have felt free to express an uninhibited hostility toward the Jewish state.