Ilhan Omar… Anti-Semitism or Islamophobia?

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Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s recent remarks about Israel’s involvement in US affairs has sparked outrage in our government. In one of her statements to Congress, she said, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Without ever attacking Jews or Judaism itself, she has been labelled as “anti-Semitic.” Pro-Israel lobbying groups quickly went up in arms to attack her, and multiple people have called for her to be removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee. President Trump even tweeted a response in which he called her comments reflective of a “dark day for Israel.” A picture of Omar has gone viral that depicts her in front of the burning buildings from 9/11.

Despite receiving an inordinate amount of criticism, Omar has not retracted her comments or stepped down from her position on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Plenty of Democrats have voiced their opinions against her, despite belonging to the same party. Several days after Omar’s remarks, a resolution was passed to denounce anti-Semitism and overall hate, which includes anti-Muslim rhetoric as well.

I recently spoke to someone who highlighted something I had never thought of before. When someone says something against Jews or Judaism, they are labelled as anti-Semitic. The use of the prefix “anti” indicates that the person who is committing the action is in the wrong. They are against something that they should not be against. When there is anti-Muslim rhetoric; however, it is most often labelled as Islamophobic. The suffix “phobia” implies that it is not necessarily wrong for someone to be against Islam. In fact, the use of this term categorizes Islam as something to be afraid of, like the dark or spiders. A person who is Islamophobic is seen as a good person who is rightly afraid of something, whereas an anti-Semite is a bad person who is against something good. The usage of these terms are not an accident, and it is clear that there are political associations with both words.

Ilhan Omar brought to light an important matter concerning our country’s undying loyalty to a foreign nation, yet she was attacked for doing so. The U.N. recently found that Israel intentionally shot children, journalists, and the disabled during protests in Gaza; yet, we see more outrage when someone questions our national loyalty than the murder of innocent people. It is clear that there is a major issue with the way that the US blindly supports Israel and its policies, and I hope that Ilhan Omar will not be the last one to call attention to this problem.

Similar Read: Ideas Make This Country Great

Cohen Stands Alone

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As my father used to say, “A man without a center can have no sides.” That saying seems perfectly suited to Michael Cohen, former fixer for Donald Trump, as he was sentenced today to three years in prison despite loudly and vehemently decrying his former boss – to whom he once declared fervent loyalty.

And yet the President sent him clear signals in pardoning Scooter Libby – a man with little need of a pardon, having already had his sentence commuted, regained his voting rights and even having been reinstated to the bar.

Libby was, in fact, a good model for a man who finds himself in his initial position. Libby stayed loyal to VP Cheney and (perhaps?) to President Bush, went to jail quietly and returned with a place to go, the same powerful friends, a life and the ability to earn a living. Why side with Mueller when your ally is a multi-billionaire with pardoning power, willing to use that power in the first year of his term? 

Cohen would have been wise to have taken a hint. Manifort surely seemed to in his final days. Upon realizing he was still likely to see prison, Manafort self-destructed as a witness, preferring some time in prison to a lifetime of isolation from friends, colleagues, and his profession.

Cohen it seems was never that smart. Making a career compensating for a lack of skills and work ethic with ethical flexibility, he found himself blowing in the winds of more determined men – and so he finds himself today as he heads off to prison. He is likely to find few friends in jail as a ‘rat’ who turned on his boss, and may find even fewer as he returns home without his profession, friends, or his former self-professed mentor.

Don’t feel sorry for Cohen. He’s a criminal. And what’s more, he’s a buffoon of a criminal who sacrificed his ethics for his boss, and then sacrificed his boss for nothing at all.  

Trump or Comey, Who’s More Credible?

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Comey’s testimony a few weeks ago didn’t necessarily open any new lines of questions or give any new answers that were all that different than what I think most people knew or assumed before- that James Comey was fired as FBI director for some combination of lack of loyalty to the President, or because the President simply wanted to devote less time to the Russia investigation (which then could be because it could lead to him, or because for this President, he feels a duty to defend his team members loyally even if they are wrong).

 The immediate conversation is about whether the President did or did not lie, whether Comey did or did not lie, multiple layers of unprovable statements and their intents, and some statements and questions about tapes (which both parties refer to but act as though they don’t have).  There’s no apparent smoking gun- at least not one that rises to a level of taking legal action against the President that wasn’t there before.  My immediate reflection is taking two individuals and contrasting their service and what that means for the direction of the country.

 Comey has been repeatedly described as a “showboater” and “grandstander”, and there may have been some cause for that.  A cynic’s view could be that he has a high opinion of himself.  Another could be that he has a high opinion of his ideals- or rather that he is uncompromising.   If that makes him a “nut job” that he has ideals that he values more than himself, that probably isn’t that much different than many of the best career civil servants.  His testimony struck the tone of someone who feels as though his credibility has been called into question, and wished to come off first and foremost as honest and doing his best in a bad situation.  There are plenty of people on both sides of the aisles who question his judgments and who’ve said that he had no business making his statements publicly in many of his most famous exchanges- each of which would more traditionally have been made by the Attorney General (a role that he also has a clear concept of having served as Deputy and Acting Attorney General), but in both cases where both a Democratic and Republican Attorney General had decided to recuse themselves.  One could argue that his job was made much harder by two Attorney Generals who had become part of the investigations they were put in place to prosecute.

 I am struck by the President’s complete inability to understand or manage such people in public service.  In his past career, being the leader meant he was the guy writing the checks, and people listened or he stopped writing the checks.  People wanted the checks, because that’s why they were there- for the paycheck, and if there was a bigger one out there, they might go for that instead.  The President puts a premium on loyalty.  Perhaps that’s because in business, it’s his against others’ business, or market forces or other constituents- and within the spectrum of his business, it is fine to have common ground and focus first on your own team (within the limits of the law).

But being President is different.  Of the next 50 job opportunities Director Comey will have, it’s quite possible that FBI director pays the least, and that’s probably true of 95% of all Senate-confirmed appointees.  They serve at the pleasure of the President, but most are there not out of a sense of personal loyalty to him, but because they believe his administration has values similar enough to their own that within it they can provide a level of service that they value more than the other job opportunities they forgo.  And when put to the test and forced to pick between any one man and their ideals, they very often pick their ideals.  So what I was most struck by during this testimony is how odd it was that the President thought firing Director Comey (or mentioning to him that he would like those investigations to away) would have any positive impact on helping the President’s agenda.  It showed me a fundamental lack of understanding as to why all public servants seek and keep their offices in the first place- and that made me wonder (as I have in the past) why he is also serving.  Why does personal loyalty matter if all are working in selfless service to the nation?  The media will spend the next few weeks on “gotchas” that aren’t “gotchas”.  What I would rather focus on are how the President and members of all sides of Congress choose with their words and actions where they place their own loyalty- to Americans, to their parties, or to their own factions?  What I saw from Director Comey was a guy that doesn’t always get it right, and he’s struggling with that.  I also saw a number of Senators looking for self-interested quote opportunities, and a President who still doesn’t even seem to understand what motivates the leaders of his own organization.