I just don’t see it (on Ilhan Omar’s tweets)

I believe people were right to tell Ilhan Omar that there is an antisemitic history behind a word like “hypnotize” when applied to Jews. I also believe she did not know that history, and think she handled the critique with grace, and she was right to say that she apologized and learned from that experience. That looked like a rare case of productive public dialogue (even though of course there was tons of nasty Islamophobic discourse around it).

But with the situation that made the news this week, I just don’t see it. All I see is the Democrats–including Omar herself at this point, but in particular the Democratic leadership–falling into the trap that the real antisemites like McCarthy have set for them. Above all, I don’t see why anyone sees anything antisemitic in the “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby” tweet. AIPAC is a lobbying group that has a stranglehold over US foreign policy in the Middle East, just as the NRA has a stranglehold over US gun policy. They use money to enforce that stranglehold. That’s a fact; there’s nothing controversial about it. As Jonathan aptly stated, the NRA would love to have the kind of taboo against mentioning their money that AIPAC just displayed that they have working in their favor. A bunch of right-wingers (some of whom have histories of actual antisemitism) invoked that taboo, and the Democratic leadership jumped on board to enforce that taboo. That infuriates me.

But OK, let’s look at the “trope” (a word they’re borrowing from literary theory, I guess? I am quickly coming to hate it, though it’s a perfectly good word). “It’s all about the Benjamins” is a common way of saying, basically, “follow the money.” Always a good mantra in politics. It refers to the fact that Benjamin (Franklin) is on the $100 bill. Benjamin Franklin was not Jewish. There’s nothing “Jewish” about AIPAC money or the power they wield; both the money and the power has a lot to do, in fact, with their alliance with the Christian Right. [If Omar had said “follow the Jewish money” or something like that, it would be a completely different story].

The only way I can see of interpreting the tweet–or really, its follow-up, where she specified that she was talking about AIPAC–as antisemitic is if you assume that AIPAC represents “the Jews.” THAT ASSUMPTION IS ANTISEMITIC. Sorry to put it in all caps, but there is almost nothing that offends my sense of Jewish identity (which is admittedly complicated and often gets questioned when I invoke it, but this isn’t about me) more than that assumption. AIPAC is not a Jewish lobby; in particular, it’s not *the* Jewish lobby. It’s a pro-Israel lobby group. If anyone–supportive of OR critical of Israel–treats them as “the Jewish lobby”–that is antisemitic, because it treats Jewish people as an ideological monolith, and they/we are not that, and never have been.

Yes, there is a nasty history of attributing undue power to Jews, that they putatively exercise through money. I’m familiar with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and with Henry Ford, and with Nazi ideology. I think that history puts on us critics of Israel a responsibility to avoid rhetoric that does that. But that responsibility does not–it cannot–prevent anyone from criticizing actually existing powerful groups, even if they exercise that power through money, and even if their power is on behalf of a state that calls itself the Jewish state. Responsibility and care do not require unilateral rhetorical disarmament. There *is* a very powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US. [This whole incident demonstrates that fact]. AIPAC is its most public and powerful face. AIPAC uses money as one way to exercise that power. Ilhan Omar said nothing more than that. Saying that is not antisemitic.

Finally (wow, this is long) I will point out that if you dig deep enough, you can find something antisemitic in one origin of the “trope” she used. The song “All About the Benjamins” contains the line “you should do what we do, stack chips like Hebrews.” Interestingly, that line is left off at least one version of the song, implying that someone was perhaps aware of its implications. I don’t know much about the song’s history; I’d be interested to know if there have been critiques of Puff Daddy for that line. But the phrase predates that song, and has had currency (sorry for the pun) well beyond it. It was the title of a 2002 movie. I’ve used the phrase; I’ve heard it dozens of times.

I can’t see a plausible argument that Omar used that line to reference that one line in the song (which comes nowhere near the “Benjamins” line). I point it out to note that a well-informed analysis could find links between all sorts of expressions in American English and all kinds of racism and hatred. I don’t even want to proliferate examples, but I promise that you used an expression in the past week that references antiblack racism, and probably antisemitism too, as directly as saying “all about the Benjamins” references that antisemitic line. In other words, to quote a different Benjamin (@BenEhrenreich, on Twitter): “There is plenty of actual anti-Semitism out there but calling out AIPAC sure ain’t it.”