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For Jews, Ilhan Omar's Attack on "Allegiances" to Israel Is All Too Familiar
(Forward) Alex Zeldin - Rep. Ilhan Omar has repeatedly made clear that her framework for understanding the U.S.-Israel relationship is deeply embedded in notions of allegiance and even dual loyalties, rather than shared interests. She and her supporters are likely unaware of the violent history behind the dual-loyalty canard she invokes - that Jews are untrustworthy and have foreign loyalties superseding their domestic ones. Throughout Jewish history, the belief that Jews harbor a dual-loyalty has resulted in state-sanctioned oppression and produced deadly violence against Jews. Already in the Book of Exodus, Pharaoh tells the Egyptians to enslave the Jews, for "in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us." Later this month, Jews will be celebrating the holiday of Purim, whose story describes how Jewish difference was cast as a threat to the king in ancient Persia. After World War I, German veterans came home and asked themselves how they were defeated. The "stab-in-the-back" myth cast Germany's loss as the result of Jewish traitors working with foreign interests to undermine the war effort. Despite a German army survey showing that Jews served in disproportionate numbers in combat units, when the Nazis swept into power 15 years later, they set about propagating the belief that Jews were inherently disloyal to their own nation.