The Ilhan Omar Kerfuffle- Another Reich Wing Tactic To Divide The Dems

 Left:: Hillary Clinton pandering to reactionary lobbyists of AIPAC in March, 2015. Right:Ilhan Omar, now the target of a smear campaign by the Right and Xtian Evangelical Repukes.

"The demonization of Rep. Ilhan Omar is a hari-kari move for the party, led by people dug in against almost any real change, doing as little as possible about all the actual crises. Demonizing a forthright congresswoman from Minnesota, who came to this country as a 12-year-old refugee from Somalia, is reactionary, mindless, unjustified and fundamentally stupid. Stupid? Yes, stupid, because it helps Republicans inflame division among Democrats with no offsetting gain."  - William Boardman,  "The Sins Of Ilhan Omar Star With Challenging Rigid Orthodoxy', smirkingchimp.com (see link at end)

After the midterm blue wave and the election of Minnesota Muslim Ilhan Omar, I told Janice it wouldn't be three months before she'd be attacked for some specious, overblown BS.  Well, I was only off by a couple months as Twitter and the forlorn Dems "blew up" after a comment (tweet) by Omar which was highlighted in a recent blog post by William Boardman:

"So what is the case against Ilhan Omar? There are a variety of alleged “smoking guns” claimed against Omar, all of which, on close examination, shoot blanks. The one that touched off the current rush to misjudgment was a short, simple tweet on February 10, 2018, here in its entirety:

“It’s all about the Benjamins, baby” [musical-notes emoji]

This is obviously a quote from a Puff Daddy song (on the album “No Way Out,” 1997), that’s what the musical notes mean. The quote is about as anti-Semitic as saying, “Money makes the world go ‘round.” It’s not anti-Semitic, it’s just true, in a pretty obvious and superficial way. It’s also a truth widely subjected to political denial."

So there you have it: one tweet interpreted in ignorance and out of context,  triggers yet another division - this time within the Dems - because too many "centrists" are still tied to the AIPAC  (America-Israel Political Action Committee) lobby.  But this goes back to when Hillary pandered to this lot three years ago.

In the case of her March, 2016 AIPAC speech,  Clinton meant every word of her saber rattling.  She professed unashamed backing of  AIPAC's Israeli nationalist agenda and even supported the warmonger Bibi Netanyahu  - who has a thing about taking out Iran-    even if it vaporizes the Middle East and Israel with it.


For the memory lapsed recall that a year before Hillary's bowing and scraping to AIPAC, Netanyahu delivered an hysterical performance on Capitol Hill.  At the invitation of the Repukes, and with fire-breathing rhetoric, "Bibi" blasted any deal apart from total Iranian nuclear disarmament and - effectively -  demanded the only alternative had to be war.

Bibi's histrionics even caught the attention of Philip Stephens  in a Financial Times article on Mar. 5, 2015  ('The Answer for Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu Is War Against Iran')  which highlighted the total awkward impropriety of it all.   Of course, the Repugs would lap it up as they're always looking for wars as a means to ramp up deficits to find excuses to cut social spending.

What was most puzzling was how this unhinged Irsraeli jackass - who more and more resembles the 'boy who cried 'Wolf!' -  has any creds left, especially after the EU and most European states "shut him out" (according to Stephens) long ago. His rants became so predictable and the over the top rhetoric so absurd that they basically tuned him out. But not the warmongering Neocons (and their evangelical allies salivating for Jews to fulfill their Armageddon prophesies) in the U.S.  

Stephens also observed that Israel's own security and political establishment - including former generals and other officials- had been critical of the speech and believed its only effect to be "a clear and present danger to Israel".

According to one observer attending the AIPAC  2016 event:

"The speech that Hillary Clinton gave to AIPAC took pandering to a new level,”

As he continued, quoted in a salon.com piece:

“Clinton promised to never be neutral and yet most Americans consistently express that they want the United States to be even-handed between Israel and the Palestinians. When one looks at public opinion among Democrats alone, this sentiment is even stronger and sympathy for Palestinians is even higher. This is especially true in the progressive base of the Democratic party — indeed the future of the party — made up of youth and minorities.”

Meanwhile, the social justice group Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, which is very critical of the Israeli government and its oppression of the Palestinians, blasted Clinton for her remarks. Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of JVP, said in a statement that the discussion at AIPAC “relies on racist and Islamophobic tropes to justify unquestioning support for Israel.”

She went on to say:

"From Democrats to Republicans, the message is the same: more arms for Israel, a stronger relationship between Israel and the U.S., no mention of Palestinian rights, and no recognition of the impossible contradiction of being both democratic and Jewish when the state is predicated on maintaining systems of unequal rights and rule by military occupation,”

Now back to Ilhan Omar. American University Professor Pamela S. Nadell has  correctly noted (Sunday Denver Post, Perspective, March 10) that in one of the tweets that got so many worked up, Omar wrote:

"I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in congress or serve on committee"

Pointing out that "she didn't say or even imply anything at all about the Jews. She said she was being asked to support Israel in order to have the privilege of serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which was true."

Then nailing it:

"Dual loyalty is precisely what AIPAC demands and what it gets. Again, it makes this demand not of Jews but of every member of congress and even of politicians at the state level whom you wouldn't think would be conducting foreign policy and it works. "

Well, indeed it works because no congress critter wants to be called "anti-Semitic" or some permutation of it.  Am I an "anti-Semitic"? No, not at all, merely someone intelligent enough to discern the difference between vigorously criticizing a LOBBY, or having to kowtow to it,  and going after a nation state or its people.  Besides, I have written numerous posts warning of the dangers of holocaust denial, as well as the role of the RC Church in protecting escaped Nazis, see e.g.

Brane Space: An Enemy of Humanity is Right!

And:

Brane Space: Of Dangerous Ideas - And 'Dumb And Dangerous Ideas ...

brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/11/of-dangerous-ideas-and-dumb-and.html

Most relevant here, Professor Nardell adds:

" 'Supporters of Israel' hasn't been a synonym  for the Jews since 1980.  I have to now repeat this: In America today a 'supporter' of Israel is much more likely to be an evangelical Christian Republican than a Jew."

Why is this? Well, because the Jews are configured into the crackpot apocalyptic fantasies and prophesies of the evangelicals and fundamentalists. They  have been (most notably) since Hal Lindsey's book ‘The Late, Great Planet Earth’ – which set the stage long before the “Left Behind” series to reel in already weakened brains.   

Lindsey built his interpretation on the identification of Israel with the “fig tree” and the coming of the Beast  (Antichrist) within one generation of its emergence (birth of a state). Since that birth occurred in 1948, and Lindsey designated one generation = 40 years (biblically) .  From this, he reckoned that the Antichrist would make his first public appearance in 1988(likely after recovering from a massive head wound of the type that killed JFK).  The Tribulation (the horrific 7-year period for his reign) would commence soon after since so many would now "worship the Beast". Everyone in the AC’s dominion would have to be marked with the magic letters ‘666’ which Lindsey surmised would be like an electronic code – similar to the product UPC codes triggered at checkout in a supermarket – to get prices. Without this special numerical code, no one would be able to buy or trade, or work – and hence couldn’t’ survive.

This tableaux also fit in with Lindsey’s other interpretations, including for the “ten heads” in Revelation – since at the time, the European Union featured ten members. Thus, the Antichrist was to arise directly out of what was the original Roman Empire, and also to be in charge of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem (atop one of Islam’s holiest sites). The price for this was for the "Son of Satan" to be worshipped by the Jews.

As any one familiar with this twaddle now knows, that timeline never materialized.  Never mind, though Lindsey's nonsense predictions have long been forgotten,  a good fiction idea (interweaving the Antichrist, Armageddon and Second Coming)  never dies. So no surprise the ensuing generation of bible punchers has run with it,   using similar statements that:

“As of 1948, the Jews have a restored national identity helps to fulfill such biblical prophecies as Ezekiel 37 and Matthew 24”

Which  totally makes  light of the mass suffering of the Jews, and the ongoing struggles they've endured just to survive day to day. And all this for what? To expeditiously fulfill “prophecies” for modern day Christian fundies - who have even admitted openly (i.e. on assorted 'Donahue' shows in the 90s) that  "The Jews have no chance to be saved unless they convert".   Even then the prophesies disclose only "144,000" will get through those pearly gates. Go figure! 

 The takeaway for me?  Many more Jews  ought to be railing against the Xtian fundie Repukes and Right extremists who back AIPAC,  and praising Ilhan Omar.  This is a time, it seems, when too many citizens have lost track of whom their real enemies are. 


See also:

More Denunciation of Omar, More Bullshit: Enough!

by Jeffrey C. Isaac | March 11, 2019 - 5:30am |

And:

Foreign Policy

The Sins of Ilhan Omar Start With Challenging Rigid Orthodoxy

by William Boardman | March 10, 2019 - 5:52am |

And:

The Slandering of Ilhan Omar

Naomi LaChance

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Peace & Justice

by Naomi LaChance | March 7, 2019 - 7:05am  

And:

This Jew Tells Speaker Pelosi: "You May Well Prove Ilhan Omar Correct"

Jeff Cohen

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Peace & Justice

Trump Disgraces Himself And The Country With Outrageous UN Exhibition

Trump At UN yesterday, delivering "the most atrocious speech ever given by an American President" in the words of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.)

Trump's outrageous exhibition at the UN yesterday was just that, an exhibition,  by a two-bit Queens real estate huckster, totally out of his depth, and shaking with fear.  Fear at an implacable North Korean enemy that isn't intimidated in the least by this orange-hued baboon's histrionics or hysteria. They know they have him over a (missile) barrel and they're not budging from their objectives to secure their country against a "regime change"..

The  North Korean UN rep had the sense to vacate his seat before the orange Orang arrived, despoiling the speech podium with his loathsome presence. Good thing as the mutt singled out North Korea, recounting its history of kidnapping, oppression, and missile and nuclear tests, blabbing:

“The US has great strength and patience. If it is forced to defend ourselves or our allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

Alarmed murmurs spread among the sane diplomats in the hall as the deranged Trump delivered another barb. Using his newly adopted epithet for Kim Jong-un, Trump said: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

He said the US was “ready, willing and able” to take military action, but said hopefully that would be unnecessary if the rest of the world stepped up its efforts to constrain the Pyongyang regime.

“That is what the United Nations is for.  Let’s see how they do.”

How they do? Abetting a madman to launch a nuclear war? They should have tossed his ass out. As it was the performance was greeted in the UN chamber mostly with silence and occasional outbreaks of disapproving murmurs, as Trump castigated a succession of  regimes he painted as "hostile" - leaving out the most pathological of all: the Trump Nazis..  How else respond when confronted by the equivalent of a two year old in the midst of a tantrum, ready to stomp his feet and cry if he doesn't get his way.


In fact, Trump's childish display with the brash, bombastic rhetoric to boot, evoked Nikita Khrushchev's shoe banging and bluster in his own October 12, 1960 UN performance, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4JhyHz3M5U

In his own spiel, Trump played the brinksmanship card again, mindlessly boasting he would "totally destroy North Korea" - failing to acknowledge if he did so he'd also totally destroy 25 million souls in Seoul, South Korea. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/04/for-donald-trump-25-million-souls-of.html

Since killing 25 million people - the population of North Korea- would be a war crime, we can say Trump advocated for a war crime and did it in the process of name calling ("rocket man").  President John F. Kennedy in October, 1962 also faced down a nuclear rocket threat - but it was far more proximate with more than seven dozen IRBMs based in Cuba, 90 miles from Miami.  Kennedy didn't call Castro or Khrushchev names like Trump did to Kim Jong- Un, he acted the way an intelligent, controlled leader is expected to - at least by sane citizens.

In the end, Kennedy and Khrushchev came to a solution which arguably spared the world from a nuclear catastrophe  - though not on the scale of one that would occur today.  But sadly, we have no sober leader at the helm but a regressed two year old in a 71 year old's body.

It is no surprise that we've since learned the speech was drafted by Bannon groupie and alt Right asshole Steven Miller. That would be the guy that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels . So much so that there are even youtube videos featuring the two spieling in alternate segments, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgypWo0DCps

So, if things really do come to a possible nuclear war we may have to lay blame on a latter day former Nazi look alike.

Seriously, though, where were the tempering reins of Gen. Jim Mattis, or Gen. John Kelly? Were they simply not able to control the mad dogs that still run amuck in the White House?  Or, did Gen. Mattis really believe the BS he uttered two days ago that the U.S. could take out North Korean underground missile silos with no impacts on South Korea? If he really believes that then he also has mutated into a looney tune. Maybe one can blame the proximity to the looney tune in chief but that's little consolation to the millions of South Koreans who'd bear the brunt of 10,000 N. Korean artillery pieces - half loaded up with sarin, the other half with smallpox virus, Ebola and gas gangrene.

Morons like Israel's Bibi Netanyahu called Trump's spiel "courageous" but what would you expect from a warmonger who can't wait to bring on Armageddon?  The fact is there was no speech in a real sense, it was an atrocious exhibition of bombast and baloney by a guy that doesn't merit presiding over a dog pound far less being president. Indeed, the only logical place for this rabid mutt is confined to a dog pound, to await his fate.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jefferson-morley/75247/trumps-maniacal-u-n-address-has-set-america-on-a-course-with-cataclysm

Israel's Netanyahu Blames The Holocaust On A Palestinian Mufti

The book that Bibi really needs to read to educate himself!

It now appears that Israeli P.M. Benjamin, aka "Bibi", Netanyahu, is the latest addition to Holocaust revisionists - after the Yale Prof. Timothy Snyder did his level best to reduce it to a simple matter of living space, and European life quality. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/10/exposing-holocaust-revisionism-of.html

But it's one thing coming from an academic like Snyder, with his previous work ('Bloodlands') also tainted by eastern European optics and bias. It's another for the leader of the Jewish nation itself to be caught up in this twisted sort of bollocks. But according to a Washington Post report,

"In a speech  Tuesday evening, Netanyahu sought to explain the current surge in violence in Israel and the West Bank by reaching for historical antecedents. He said Jews living in what was then British Palestine faced many attacks in 1920, 1921 and 1929 — all instigated by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who allied himself with the Nazis during World War II.

Then Netanyahu dropped a bigger bombshell, asserting: "Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time; he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here.' 'So what should I do with them?' he asked. He said, 'Burn them.' "

Netanyahu, the son of a historian, said the mufti played "a central role in fomenting the Final Solution," as the Nazis termed their plan to exterminate the Jews. Of course, his historian father would be turning over in his grave at this spectacle of an Israeli leader rewriting the genesis of the Holocaust.

The WaPo report went on to note that Netanyahu, the son of a historian, said the mufti "played a central role in fomenting the Final Solution," as the Nazis termed their plan to exterminate the Jews.

Bibi's remarks were made in a speech to the World Zionist Congress about "the 10 big lies" told by Palestinians and their backers.

But lo and behold, even Bibi's illustrious supporters were at a loss to figure out what exactly what he was doing. Indeed, his critics said his claims were outrageous enough to give cover to Holocaust deniers. Which they can and will, you can bet your sweet bippy on that!

Hell, even Zionist Union lawmaker Itzik Shmuli demanded Bibi apologize to Holocaust victims according to the Iraeli newspaper Haaretz. And when you also have a Netanyahu ally, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon saying that "Hitler initiated the Holocaust" you know you're deep in B.S. and piffle.

So what is the real scoop here? How did the germ for the idea of Hitler's Final Solution really emerge? Well, you won't find it in right wing circles with their assorted cartoon publications, or in most history books. What I did is consult the record written by German journalist Konrad Heiden - a contemporary of Hitler's  - from his book, 'The Fuehrer'.

Heiden spends a significant time in the early pages detailing the specific trigger for Hitler and the embryonic Nazis yen to go after Jews. While I already mentioned the ancient Volkisch movement which was fueled by the belief that the "Regensburg Jews" were to blame for the crucified Christ and hence merited torment and even extermination, the immediate cause is more subtle and not quite so outlandish. (Not to say the two causes could not have linked up later, and Heiden details many reasons why on pp. 454- 59).

But the immediate trigger appears to have been an obscure document entitled 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion', which was actually found in the appendixes of a book published in 1905 in the Imperial state printing shop in Tsaarskoye Selo, Russia. (Heiden, p. 19) . It was claimed by the author Sergei Nilus that the Protocols "were the minutes of speeches and debates made at the founding congress of the Zionist Movement in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897." (ibid.)

The key section of the document laid out a plan for Jewish world conquest, i.e.

"In these secret sessions the Zionist leaders set out their plan for world conquest. It was there these speeches were allegedly made: 'We shall everywhere arouse ferment, struggle, and enmity - we shall unleash a world war- we shall bring peoples to such a pass that they will voluntarily offer us world domination."

In other words, this material comprised 'tinder' for any future regime that might  entertain a similar domination idea - and also provided a pretext to eliminate Jews as political enemies. The question became how it got into the hands of such renegades?

Heiden notes the book and its Protocols ( in its appendixes) were to have been transported to Frankfurt am Main to be preserved in a secret archives, but the courier allowed the materials  to be unsecured and they fell into the hands of a German engineer named Alfred Rosenberg (p. 20).

At the end of 1918, Rosenberg - who served in the German Army until it disbanded with the war lost - left with the Protocols in hand . Not long after he delivered the papers to the Thule Society "named after the legendary kingdom of Nordic mythology" (Also averred to be the unquestioned "homeland of the German race" according to the Volkisch movement).

Anyway, The Protocol papers proved especially interesting to two Thule members, Rudolph Hess and Dietrich Eckhart. Soon thereafter the Protocols appeared in German ("a certain Ludwig Muller signed his name as publisher"). Subsequently, the Protocols "were published in America, in Italy in Hungary" and Heiden also refers to (p. 23):

"The Bishop of Warsaw recommending the book's dissemination"

The material itself, while mostly codswallop, wasn't enough to trigger massive retaliation and extermination of the Jews in Germany. It still required a catalyst to set off the meme and the actions. That meme flashed into view with the takeover of Russia by the Bolsheviks (communists) and the fact that one of the leading minds who formulated the doctrines of communism (in 'The Communist Manifesto')  was a Jew - named Karl Marx.

Given communists, socialists and the Left in general were the most active protestors against the Nazi takeover and bully tactics in the early 1930s, it didn't take much to make the connection to Jews, and then a "Jewish conspiracy of world domination",  thereby justifying a "Final Solution".

As Heiden later observes (p. 456):

"Socialists and Communists, it is true, had a worse time of it if they were Jews. In the concentration camps they were segregated and treated with special harshness. But primarily the blow was directed against Marxism, the socialist and democratic Left.  In the National Socialist formulation the political weapon of Jewry must be broken first, not yet Jewry itself."

Thus had the Nazis, in their minds, put "two plus two" together that the Jews and the communists (their fellow travelers) had to be against the State, the Reich and hence had to be eliminated.  First, the political weapons,  then the Jews themselves.

THIS is the history that Bibi really needs to read and understand, next time he spouts off about the Holocaust being incited by a "mufti".

Sadly, it's much easier to grandstand and revise history on the fly, than it is to dig deeper at the insidious causes of that horrific event.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/max-blumenthal/64422/painting-palestinians-as-nazis-netanyahu-incites-a-wave-of-vigilante-violence

Excerpt:

"There is no evidence to support Netanyahu’s statements about the Mufti’s malignant influence over Hitler. According to a full readout of the November 28, 1941 meeting between the two, the Mufti never urged Hitler to “burn [the Jews],” as Netanyahu alleged. Hitler’s discussion with the Mufti occurred months after the liquidation of nearly the entire Jewish population of Lithuania and weeks after the slaughter at Babi Yar, where over 34,000 Ukrainian Jews were killed in one of the largest massacres of World War Two. Contrary to Netanyahu’s claims, the engines of genocide were roaring by the time the Mufti and Hitler met.

Almost every aspect of Netanyahu’s screed was false, down to his claim that Husseini died in Cairo before he could be summoned to testify at the Nuremberg Tribunal. (He died in Beirut in 1974). In absolving Hitler of overseeing the Jewish genocide, Netanyahu dabbled in Holocaust denial, a crime in several European countries. "