GOP to Frame Dems as Anti-Semitic for Refusing to Prolong U.S. Involvement In…Yemen

As a Jew, given that anti-Semitism is on the rise in America thanks to Donald Trump and the alt-right, I find any “attack” on anti-Semitism coming from the GOP to be rich. They are the prime vector for anti-Semitism in America right now, and I do not view it as a coincidence that the largest anti-Semitic terror attack in American history occurred while Donald Trump occupies the oval office.

The GOP uses my people as a political football. Their hardcore evangelical base (who have proven to be more Republican than evangelical) is a stronger supporter of Israel than I am because they believe that in order for Jesus to come back, all the Jews must return to Israel and die horrible deaths while we watch them ascend to heaven. The GOP knows how powerful the Israel lobby is (which is NOT the same as a “Jewish” lobby), and how powerful some Jews like Sheldon Adelson are to money in politics. They exploit us at every turn, and now they have stapled a defense of me that I do not want in their aim to continue bombing children in Yemen. Per Politico:

A House-passed bill to halt U.S. involvement in Yemen’s deadly civil war will not get a vote in the Senate, a setback to Democrats and Republicans who sought to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The Senate parliamentarian ruled that an amendment to the House-passed bill which contains language condemning anti-Semitism was not “germane” to the Yemen War Powers resolution — a decision that allows Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to block a vote on the measure. The legislation initially had “privileged” status, giving supporters an end run around McConnell, who has long opposed the effort.

…

Despite the parliamentarian’s ruling, senators still plan to force a vote on a clean version of the Yemen War Powers resolution, one authored by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) … But House Republicans will likely try again to add language condemning anti-Semitism, a move that would put Democrats in an uncomfortable political position to vote “no” on the amendment in order to ensure that the War Powers resolution advances to Trump’s desk. If that amendment passes, the measure would face the same obstacle from the Senate parliamentarian.

Eric Levitz highlighted in NYMag how important that last paragraph is:

That last point is worth emphasizing: If the Senate finds a way to pass new legislation ending American support for the Saudi war, House Republicans (reportedly) plan to attack House Democrats as “soft on anti-Semitism” — unless Democrats vote to (effectively) prolong American participation in war crimes against a vulnerable ethnic group.

Conservatives’ crocodile tears about the Holocaust have always been tough for me to swallow. By the time my grandmother hit puberty, Nazis had murdered her father, mother, sister, and brother. By the time I met her, paranoid delusions had gnawed at her mind. She could smell the poison “they” were pumping through the vents of her apartment. She could see that my (Jewish) father was a crypto-Nazi who was trying to kill her.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf how much he admired American racism, like the transparently racist Immigration Act of 1924. Know who else also waxed poetic about the Immigration Act of 1924? Beloved longtime Republican congressman and former Trump Attorney General, Jeff Sessions in 2015 to Steve Bannon:

In seven years we’ll have the highest percentage of Americans, non-native born, since the founding of the Republic. Some people think we’ve always had these numbers, and it’s not so, it’s very unusual, it’s a radical change. When the numbers reached about this high in 1924, the president and Congress changed the policy, and it slowed down immigration significantly, we then assimilated through the 1965 [Immigration Act] and created really the solid middle class of America, with assimilated immigrants, and it was good for America. We passed a law that went far beyond what anybody realized in 1965, and we’re on a path to surge far past what the situation was in 1924.

So please, spare me, congressional Republicans. I do not need your defense on the topic of anti-Semitism. If anything, I need a defense from your anti-Semitism, as Senate Republicans are tying a grievance I am not making to their unquenchable thirst for perpetuating war crimes, and simultaneously evoking Henry Ford’s BS anti-Semitic assertion that Jews are behind all war on Earth.

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.