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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

She can do that without suggesting that U.S. Israel policy is driven by money (it isn't really) or mentioning dual allegiances.

Paul Waldman (cites omitted):

Ilhan Omar certainly didn’t say that Jews have dual loyalty. For instance, in one of the tweets that got people so worked up, Omar said, “I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee.” You’ll notice she didn’t say or even imply anything at all about Jews. She said that she was being asked to support Israel in order to have the privilege of serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which was true. Many on the right have called for her to be removed from that committee (see here, or here, or here, or here). Her argument, to repeat, isn’t about how Jews feel about Israel, it’s about what is being demanded of her.

And here’s the ultimate irony: Dual loyalty is precisely what AIPAC demands, and what it gets. Again, it makes this demand not of Jews, but of every member of Congress, and even of politicians at the state level whom you wouldn’t think would be conducting foreign policy. And it is working.

Take, for instance, the wave of state laws passed in recent years in opposition to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in which a state would refuse to do business with anyone who supports BDS. In some cases, those laws require that contractors sign a document promising not to support any boycott of Israel. It’s illustrated by the case of a speech pathologist in Texas who sued over a requirement that she sign such a pledge to work in a public school district. That is literally a demand that she pledge her loyalty to Israel. She’s not Jewish, and the officials who demanded that she do so aren’t either; the Texas Republican Party is not exactly an organization dominated by Jews. When Gov. Greg Abbott (R) — also not a Jew — proclaims that “Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies,” he’s expressing his dual loyalty.

Yet, when Omar says she shouldn’t have to do the same, everyone jumps up to accuse her of anti-Semitism, on the bogus grounds that 1) //she is secretly referring to Jews and not to what she is being asked to do; and 2) it’s some kind of anti-Semitic smear to even raise the issue of people being asked to promise their allegiance to Israel, when the truth is that members of Congress are asked to do just that.