I draw your attention to a little-noticed but very important statement made by Bernie adviser @joshorton to the DNC platform committee: https://jewishinsider.com/2020/07/dnc-advances-the-2020-platform-including-a-pro-israel-plank-by-unanimous-consent/
Let’s take a closer look at this offensive lie. Why would someone who works in far-left American politics refer to a religious-national dispute in the Middle East using an irrelevant phrase taken from US domestic politics? It's odd and out of place. What’s going on here?
Maybe Orton is ignorant or misinformed? Not plausible – he prefaced his accusation that Israelis are racists with perfunctory, insincere throat-clearing about his deep concern for the Jewish state. He knows what he’s doing.
There is a deliberate effort by leftists like Orton to racialize the Israel-Pal dispute, putting it – they hope – in a political frame instantly understandable to American progressives who have passionate feelings about domestic racial issues but know nothing of Israel or the ME
I think they are successful among progressives, who increasingly see our society solely through the lens of race. It’s pushing on an open door: This complicated dispute in the ME is just like this other, familiar, issue – understand one, and you understand the other.
That’s the cynical and dishonest game Orton is playing. Its origin is probably w/ Edward Said, but it’s been promoted more aggressively recently, starting w/ Ferguson protests in 2014, when BDS groups attempted to attach their hatred of Israel and Jews into the BLM movement.
In 2014, BDS groups convened, developed a slogan (“From Ferguson to Palestine”), and promoted the poisonous narrative that Palestinians = American blacks, Israelis = racist American whites.
So when you hear a Bernie adviser seemingly out of nowhere say that a dispute between Jews & Muslims that dates back to the Islamic conquests & Pact of Omar is an American-style matter of “racial justice,” it is not an accident.
It is a very deliberate strategy to turn liberal opinion against Israel by employing a big lie. Congrats, @joshorton
Final thought: Israel is one of the most racially diverse countries on earth, w/ communities from Iran, N. Africa, Iraq, Ethiopia, E & W Europe, Russia, Yemen. This campaign to paint it as a white ethnonational state is laughable to anyone who's lived there.
You can follow @NoahPollak.
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