President Donald Trump continues to try out new lines of attack on Democrats ahead of the 2020 presidential election. In recent days, at a private event at Mar-a-Lago, he reportedly went so far as to assert that Democrats “hate Jewish people,” wondering why any Jew would stick with a candidate from the party.
His commentary comes after Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has faced repeated rounds of criticism for her scrutiny of Israeli ties to U.S. government and political affairs. She’s suggested that U.S. support for the largely Jewish country hinges on financial donations, and that at least some of those who express support for the controversial nation maintain a form of dual loyalty. In response, she’s faced condemnation even from within the Democratic Party, which took it upon itself recently to pass a resolution in the House formally condemning forms of hate including anti-Semitism.
Remarkably, almost two dozen House Republicans voted against that measure, at least in part because they claimed it didn’t get specific enough. However, those who refused to get on board included prominent far-right voices like Iowa Congressman Steve King, making their dissent about more than just political showmanship. (King voted “present.”) Not too long ago, King openly wondered why “white nationalist” was considered an offensive term.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has defended Omar but explicitly shot down anti-Semitism, explaining that she believes that rather than harboring anti-Semitic sentiment, the first-term Muslim Congresswoman “has a different experience in the use of words” and
“doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with meaning.”
For her part, although she’s explicitly remained firm in her criticism of Israel, Omar has apologized for dragging Jews at-large into the mess, saying that after education from her “Jewish allies and colleagues” about the implications of some of her comments, she was moved to “unequivocally apologize.”
Somehow, from all of that, Trump got the idea that Democrats “hate Jewish people.” He made the remark at a meeting with donors to the Republican National Committee, who before listening to the president, were made to place their phones in “magnetized pouches” to curtail leaking (which we know about thanks to a leak). He based at least some of his commentary in egotism, asserting to those in attendance that he’d reach “98% in the polls” if he ran to be prime minister of Israel, at least in part supposedly because of his dramatic move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which offered a level of tangible recognition of the contested city as the nation’s capital.
Israel will be holding elections on April 9. Trump would fit in well considering their current prime minister and a longtime Trump ally Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted for corruption as part of a probe that he’s dismissed as… wait for it… a “witch hunt.”
Trump has sought to push himself into the debate before, having asserted that Omar’s original apology was “lame” and that she “didn’t mean a word of it.”
Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, black Americans, women, transgender people, and more still await an apology from the president for being singled out on no basis other than their identity.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
