Reply to memo: You went there.

A memo to “American Jews who continue to support President Trump”, “the pro-Israel president of [their] dreams”, demands an explanation for the continuation of said support in the wake of ABC News’ revelations of “disclosure of highly classified information to senior Russian officials” which must be “of a more dangerous and more consequential magnitude” than the President’s previous ostensible Middle East Missteps (especially because “the Washington Post editorial board declared” it so).

So now it’s up to “a new power elite, [] arguably the only Jews in America outside the administration who seem to have [Trump’s] ear”, to “use [their] favored access” to “start holding him accountable”, in no small part because the author of the memo “won’t even ask you to imagine your reaction to these events if the president in question were Barack Obama. I won’t even go there.”

Reply to memo:

You went there.

When you and your own side’s “power elite”s gave “silence[,] acquiescence [and] approval” to eight years of hostile policies that you now ostensibly find horrifying…

When you employ the same kind of dogwhistling that you ignored from Obama yet accuse every Trump supporter (and Trump himself) of using…

When you engage in the type of group stereotyping that you would loudly decry if it didn’t involve ostensibly right-of-center and Orthodox Jews…

…you’ve gone there.

“Silence is acquiescence [and] approval”: Senator Schumer, while one of the few Democrats who voted against the JCPOA, backed Rep. Keith Ellison for DNC Chair, a modern-day analog to Herbert Samuel’s appointment of Haj Amin al-Husseini as Mufti of Jerusalem.  The DNC Vice Chair retweets Max Blumenthal and makes support for Linda Sarsour well-nigh unconditional among the party faithful.

“Silence is acquiescence [and] approval”: Sarsour’s tweets? Ellison’s votes? Hank Jones’ proclamations about “settlers”? John Kerry’s recorded off-mike comments during the Gaza War?

“Silence is acquiescence [and] approval”: Obama called opponents of the JCPOA “warmongers”.  Did the author call on a “power elite” to hold Obama “accountable?”

Does the memo writer have no sense of irony when she criticizes these “Jewish supporters” for “st[anding] right next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and def[ying] decades of American and Israeli policy by dismissing the two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict?”

Does the memo writer have no sense of irony when she asks “how you can still support a leader who cannot be trusted to protect the country that is supposed to be his very best friend[?]” after eight years of “silence [], acquiescence [and] approval” of a Democratic party aiming to equate the legitimacy of the Zionist project as it currently exists with the aspirations of its sworn mortal enemies, particularly the Iranians and Palestinians, all the while the party head intimates he “has Israel’s back”?

Does the memo writer have no sense of irony when she implies that Trump voters might have “other issues at play such as…cultural touchstones of the sort that tie [them] more closely to white evangelical Christians than to other Jews” therefore making that political stance “less Jewish”, when more ostensibly “liberal” Jews have felt compelled to fend off those kinds of accusations from Jews on the right?

Even Trump’s most ostensibly egregious missteps are out of kilter with his party platform, the positions of the overwhelming majority of elected legislators in his party, and certainly with his appointed high level diplomats who have publicly proclaimed positions favorable to your so called “power elite”.  Obama’s hostile policies (including but not limited to ones that hamstrung Israeli military actions in real time, particularly in Syria in 2013 and Gaza in 2014) were consistent with his party its platform, their legislators, and administrators.

Reply to memo:

Want an “explanation” for the “silence, acquiescence [and] approval”?  Until Trump, his administration, and his party all singularly and consistently rise to the level of betrayal of his predecessor—essentially, Trump and the GOP would have to adopt Obamanian policy wholesale (highly unlikely after Trump turned Obama’s Grovel in Cairo to Gravel in Riyadh)—and, until you cease engaging in the type of backhanded polemics you won’t grant to your counterparts on your right, you have no standing to make that kind of demand.

You went there.