Glenn Greenwald on Cantor and Israel: "Cantor's Pledge of Allegiance"

[Enrique]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/13/israel/index.html

(...)

As Kampeas notes, Cantor's office quickly disputed his understanding, but this is hardly the first time Cantor has violated supposedly sacred political conventions in order to side with Israel over his own country. Last August, Cantor led a GOP delegation to Israel and while in Jerusalem -- which happens to be "foreign soil" -- he condemned his own President and American policy for opposing the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Criticizing America while on Dreaded Foreign Soil is supposed to be one of the most extreme taboos in American politics: Al Gore was bitterly denounced as a borderline-traitor for a 2006 speech in Saudi Arabia criticizing American foreign policy, and Gore at the time was merely a private citizen, not a leading political official. But American political figures like Cantor feel free to do exactly that -- criticize America on foreign soil -- when it comes to Israel; recall the same thing being done by by Mike Huckabee.

That's because, in general, all the rules change -- are completely reversed -- when it comes to Israel. As Cantor's behavior demonstrates, the rules that apply to "foreign countries" are inapplicable to Israel because in mainstream American politics, Israel is not considered and therefore is not treated as a "foreign country" at all. Many Israel devotees actually tried to expand the "no-criticizing-the U.S.-on-foreign-soil" rule by suggesting there was something wrong with Obama's criticism of Israel while in Indonesia; apparently, it's fine for American officials to criticize the U.S. while in Israel, but not for the U.S. President to criticize Israel while on foreign soil. And for the past two years, leading Democrats who would never dare publicly criticize Obama for anything have bitterly and publicly denounced him for the crime of opposing Israeli policy. And, of course, there is far greater unity in the U.S. Congress for Israeli wars than for America's own wars; that's just a fact.

(...)

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Glenn is JEWISH BTW

So don't let this that get in the way.....
Of accusations of Anti-Semitism.

[arcticken]

2. "Israel devotees," gives away his

ideology which trumps any Jewishness he may possess. Lots of Jews hate Israel.

[Luminous Animal]

3. What do you think devotee means? Some people are baseball devotees.

Some are prog rock devotees. I'm a blown glass devotee. Some people are England devotees. We call them Anglophiles. Some people are France devotees. We call them Francophiles. Why take a benign word and turn it into something pernicious?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. His ideology is that he is a liberal.

Anyone who gives a damn about human rights is opposed to Israel's actions.

You're quite right that there are Jews who hate Israel and zionism - I'm one of them, although sadly I don't think there are "lots" of us. That doesn't make us antisemites, though, as you appear to be implying.