Bachmann Says US Jews are Selling Out Israel

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann Bachmann has accused American Jews of having “sold out Israel” by voting for President Obama in 2008 and 2012.

“The Jewish community gave him their votes, their support, their financial support,” Bachmann told Tony Perkins on the Family Research Center's radio channel, “and as recently as last week, 48 Jewish donors who are big contributors to the president wrote a letter...to the Democrat [sic] senators in the U.S. Senate to tell them to not advance sanctions against Iran.”

But Jews are separate from all other nations, by definition. This separation is similar to that between the holy and the secular and Shabbat from the rest of the week and is mentioned as such in the havdalah prayer.

Not disagreeing with you, however the Jews Michelle is speaking of on the left wouldn't accept that premise, factual or not, and won't be swayed in a secular election by that approach.

I don't take offense, nor have I ever suggested she's antisemitic or anything other than a strong supporter of Israel.

However she is clearly playing to a longstanding antisemitic canard of Jewish insularity and disloyalty. And though she's not suggesting it, the get what you deserve rationale for the persecution of Jews. You say

There's no excuse for the Jewish Left's embrace of Obama, and for its failure to realize that he had anti-Semitic as well as anti-Israel proclivities from his upbringing as a leftist radical, in addition to his friendships with Islamist radicals, all deeply ingrained in his ideology and experience.

I'd rephrase it to suggest that they're no excuse for the left's embrace of Obama.....

Most Jews on the hard left, and probably on the right too, are there because of political positions unrelated to Israel. Singling out leftist Jews for special criticism does not win votes.

Singling out leftist Jews for special criticism does not win votes.

Not sure about that. I don't particularly trust the accuracy of left-leaning polling organizations who tend to tell us a day or two after national elections how Jews as a group (or other racial, religious, or ethnic groups) voted nationally. But I think it's beyond dispute that Obama in 2012 did nowhere near as well amongst Jewish voters as he had in 2008. Seems as if about 10% of Jewish voters decided to switch their presidential vote from Obama to the Republican between the two elections, so maybe attacks on the Jewish Left do have a positive impact on some Jewish voters, drawing a connection between Obama administration policies and a actions and a bleaker future for the Jewish people (and many others) at home, in Israel, and in other nations.

Being right is not enough sometimes.
There is a manner and means of saying hard truths like this.

Except when a good shot to the kippeh is needed to get one focused. (Did I get that right?)

My late MIL, smart doctor, related her family's story. Her parents came from Austria after WWI, settled in rural Pennsylvania and established a good sized farm with a large family. Not wealthy, but comfortable, and managed to live through the depression better than most. Meanwhile, the Austrian side waxed and married even better, maybe upper middle class as was related to.

My MIL family read the tea leaves correctly after Kristalnacht and repeated plead with the Vienna branch to leave, come to America where there was room on the farm. A safe haven from which to regroup. The replies from Vienna were dripping with disdain. "We are Austrian, well established before Franz Jussel. We have a place in society, we are comfortable and safe with our well placed Austrian friends. And you would have us give this up because of your fears from thousands of miles away? To move to some primitive farm? Bah! (A rather more unkind term was used and never translated for me.)

You can guess the fate of the Austrian branch, none survived. To her dying day my MIL thought she and her family didn't try hard enough, didn't say the right words to the branch that identified themselves as Austrian uber alles.

So, my question to you is, how many of the first modern Israelis related similar stories and regrets? How many survivors admitted to the same mindset as the Austrian Jews mentioned?

Seems to me that the 80% or so of American Jews supported Obama, the ones who love to say "Never Again" and used to say "Next year in Jerusalem" at UJA dinners will see the Muslims pledge "Next year in Jerusalem" come to fruition. Or do you not see an existential threat to Israel?

The pre-Zionist Haredi have really come around and while such freeloaders are an issue, they are mainly just a whipping boy used by a very liberal, securlar, press in Israel to make religious Jewish people look bad.

An anti-draft rally in Jerusalem this past Sunday, called for by the country’s leading haredi rabbis and billed a Million Man Atzeres (assembly), drew hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. Source

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