OBJECTS, NOT SUBJECTS:

Trump is leveraging Jewish tropes in order to bolster his claim that powerful women of color should "go back" to those places "from which they came." As Trump and his surrogates defend their attack on Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, they have repeatedly characterized the group as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism, in this context, is defined primarily as critique of Israel and is used strategically to obscure key differences between those who single out Israel as illegitimate and those who oppose particular Israeli government policies such as the expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Trump's rhetoric yokes political legitimacy to unquestioning support for Israel, concern with anti-Semitism, and the rejection of women of color. This leaves little room for the majority of Jews who support the Democratic Party, for Jews who are critical of the Occupation and West Bank settlement expansion, and for Jews who are further left on the political spectrum when it comes to Israel. While "the squad," and by extension the Democratic Party, is the primary target of these attacks, this troubling strain of political rhetoric "others" the majority of American Jews. Trump's attempts to frame support for Israel in partisan terms also confound a longstanding American Jewish institutional agenda that promotes bipartisan support for the state of Israel even when the U.S. opposes specific Israeli government policies. The Obama administration's ongoing military support for Israel even in the face of an openly antagonistic relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a case in point. In other words, this rhetoric is ultimately damaging for pro-Israel interests, as well. Asserting that full citizenship relies on uncritical support for the state of Israel and attempting to portray the Democratic Party as anti-Semitic are rhetorical flourishes that are dangerous for American Jews.

This political strategy, in which anti-Semitism is used to create division in the Democratic Party, has taken concrete form in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting of Oct. 27, 2018. 

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