A Synthetic Scandal: Ilhan Omar & AIPAC

“That victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he, or she, has become a threat.” James Baldwin

Maybe AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, doesn’t directly buy political favors in the way the NRA does, but that doesn’t mean that politicians from both parties aren’t influenced to  outright support AIPAC’s aims or remain silent about them for fear of landing on the wrong side of the lobby. And you can see by the hysterical reaction to Ilhan Omar’s comments about AIPAC how quickly bipartisan indignation and righteousness gets ginned up. How dare this first year congressperson from Minnesota criticize AIPAC! The temerity. Naturally, anti-semitism must be Omar’s motivation. What else could it be in our black and white world?

Omar apologized but you can bet money that she will be forever fighting the anti-semitic label, which is one way AIPAC wields influence. On their best days, Washington D.C. politicians are a pusillanimous lot, and for the majority of them the idea of crossing AIPAC is about as welcome as a colonoscopy. Get smeared with the anti-semite brush and you can kiss your career goodbye. An AIPAC endorsement can spell the difference between winning or losing an election or reelection bid. And it hardly matters if the charge is baseless. You just can’t criticize Israel, period. You can’t compare AIPAC to the NRA though they both practice and benefit from influence peddling. You can’t bring up the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank without having anti-semitism thrown in your face. I can think of no other nation in the world that can squelch even the mildest criticism as quickly as Israel can. The Israeli Defense Forces shoot and kill unarmed Palestinian protesters without consequence. This is a fact, not an anti-semitic statement. I don’t contest Israel’s right to exist as a nation and have security for its citizens. I don’t question the reality of anti-semitism in the world; it is real. I do question whether Israel has a right to forcibly expel Palestinians from their land, wall them into pitiful enclaves, restrict their freedom of movement, torch their olive trees and take their water, or strangle the life out of them in Gaza; I also question the Netanyahu government’s support for democratic values.

But just try having this debate in the United States, or Britain, for that matter. You can’t. No critique of the government of Israel is allowed. The subject is off-limits. The second you raise the question of the Palestinians you are deemed to be hostile to Israel, and if you’re hostile to Israel you will be chased from the editorial pages of the New York Times, from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and all the rest. You will be silenced. Ask Angela Davis or Mark Lamont Hill. Ask Noam Chomsky. Ask Jeremy Corbyn. Ilhan Omar is in good company.

MJ Rosenberg, a contributor to the Huffington Post, wrote the following: “AIPAC uses the same tactics as the NRA to ensure that the United States never deviates from support for whatever policy the Israeli government is pushing at the moment.” It’s assumed that Israel’s foreign policy objectives are indistinguishable from those of the United States, and that the United States will always, and forever, provide diplomatic cover and military aid to Israel.

Donald Trump has called for Omar to resign over this synthetic scandal, a ridiculous thing for him to say but hardly unexpected from the most corrupt person to ever inhabit the White House. Less than two years ago Trump was apologizing for neo-Nazi’s who chanted “Jews will not replace us!” Pelosi and others in the Democratic Party leadership have extracted an apology from Omar, that’s enough. Like the NRA, the fossil fuel lobby and Big Pharma, AIPAC uses all the means at its disposal to influence the United States government on behalf of Israel. This is a fact and nothing to apologize for. If supporters of Israel are so certain of their righteousness and morality, why are they afraid to engage in debate and discussion?

Commencement

Our niece graduated from Pitzer College yesterday. 259 graduates in the Class of 2012 at this small, private, liberal arts college -- one of the five Claremont colleges. On a day that dawned hazy and turned sunny, orange and white were the dominant colors. Neat, symmetrical rows of white folding chairs under a huge white tent, green grass underfoot, parents and friends and relatives jockeying for vantage from which to shoot video or still photographs while music from a jazz quintet played over loudspeakers. The anticipation builds as ten o’clock nears and faculty and graduates line up for the triumphant processional walk up the center aisle.

The president of Pitzer College, a woman, welcomes the graduates and guests and then rattles off some of the accomplishments of this class: the thousands of hours of community service rendered, the trips abroad, the academic achievements, the honors earned, the trophies won in pool or on court and field. Pitzer College may be small and private and liberal, but it doesn’t lack for passion or spirit or pride. Our niece had a marvelous experience here, living in the dorms, studying in Ecuador for a semester, and forming friendships that in all probability will last her a lifetime. No matter what twists and turns happen in the future, the Pitzer class of 2012 will forever be connected by their shared experience, the fact that they were together on this milestone day, under a great white tent, wearing white caps with orange tassels.

Dr. Angela Davis is the commencement speaker and receives a cacophonous and prolonged ovation when she is introduced. My wife and I are old enough to remember when Angela Davis was a lightning rod figure, a walking controversy, feared by politicians and on J. Edgar Hoover’s Ten Most Wanted list. Intelligent, black, outspoken and courageous, Davis was too much for then Governor Ronald Reagan, who vowed that Dr. Davis would never again hold a position in the University of California system. Father Ronnie, protecting young, impressionable minds from the dangerous radical with the Afro and hoop earrings. Fortunately, this vow didn’t come to pass.

Dr. Davis set her iPad on the podium and began speaking, slowly at first, about her experiences in the world, in life, how after she was fired a second time from UCLA she was invited to teach here, at Pitzer, but only under strict conditions – student access to her lectures was limited, and the location of these lectures a closely guarded secret, lest a crowd gather and mayhem ensue, a mass conversion to Communism, feminism, and equality.

In the way she effortlessly taps a deep font of knowledge and wisdom, Davis reminds me of Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. She clearly enjoys young people, her smile is warm and effusive, her sense of humor enhanced by her years rather than diminished. Using her own story as living proof, she tells the graduates that if they are lucky to live long enough, every defeat can be turned into a victory. She uses words like “social justice” and “equality” and “militarism”, words that may be standard currency here at Pitzer, but are largely absent from American discourse. In fact, the concepts sound hoary, antiquated, and foreign. What does social justice mean in contemporary America?

When the name of the last graduate has been called, when the tassels have flipped from back to front, and caps launched airborne, there are tears and smiles, high fives and hugs, flowers and leis, Mylar balloons, and most of all, the prized diploma, in Latin and English, as is the Pitzer tradition.