I like her, but she would really do herself and the causes she supports, to resist getting into the limelight, at least for now.   What did she say that was so horrible?

It was that our support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins,” which is slang for 100 dollar bills namely money.   Of course, money and politics go hand-in-hand.   Trump wants good relations with the Saudis, in hopes of getting big military contracts.  Not for the US government, but for companies like Boeing and dozens of military equipment manufacturers.    I think the Vox website got it right:

” It was false — support for Israel is complex and related to many more factors than just lobbyist money — and it played into centuries of conspiracy theories about Jewish money corrupting Western politics.”

Her four words went viral and totally blown out of proportion.  There was another comment where she seem to give support of a dual loyalty theory, that implies Jewish politicians were conflicted between what was best for America and best for Israel.  She really has back tracked on her offensive comment.  However, Trump is really on the war path.  Again, it is not her statements per se, but the exaggerated impact which is  being tossed about the social media.  Social media can act as a distorted echo chamber.

I worked in Kuwait, and listen to some pretty anti-Israel comments.  It was, in my opinion, rooted on a biased history of how Israel was formed, and its intentions to its Arab leaders.  We had some lively debates at that time.  At the same time, Muslims and Jews were just fine working together.  It was never personal.

The US under the Trump administration will never present a practical plan to resolve the hostilities between Palestine and Israel, because it will simply agree with Israel.   We have given up our role as a neutral party, and gone way too far in aligning our interests with Israel.  That’s very bad for us.   For Arab extremists,  the anger and paranoia begins with hatred towards Israel, and then all countries associated with Israel, most obvious today is the US.

As I said in the beginning, I like Representative Omar.   I think she has a lot of “John Kennedy” type zeal in her and is strongly involved in the really big issues facing the world – such as hunger, environment  and climate change.  Getting it right on access to health care services and education for our country are critical to make this country great again (after Trump).

I hope she can weather this storm.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/12/18220241/ilhan-omars-twitter-tweet-anti-semitism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_All_About_the_Benjamins

(I honestly didn’t know how popular this slang expression was, and I thought they were talking about Benjamin Netayahu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilhan_Omar