You can say that [about politics and "Benjamins"] about the NRA, but not about The Lobby

Far from Washington, Rep. Omar's constituents see the Israel controversy in a different light

In the nation’s capital, Ilhan Omar drew an intense backlash for a tweet that suggested American support for Israel was "all about the Benjamins baby" and a remark that pro-Israel activists pushed for "allegiance to a foreign country." 

She was accused by some lawmakers and prominent Jewish groups of anti-Semitism and playing on toxic anti-Jewish stereotypes.

In response, the House of Representatives last week overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning all hate, though the measure did not single her out. 

Omar, for her part, has apologized for suggesting that the United States' connection to Israel is driven by money from AIPAC, a prominent pro-Israel lobby group.

It is the position of The Lobby that criticism of the status of Israel as a specifically Jewish homeland or Jewish state is anti-Semitism.

It is the position of The Lobby and the Republican Party that this is so.

They have seized the moment to subject Omar to a shitstorm because she does not share that position and will not be pushed into adopting it.

The pressure on her is just what she means by being pushed into "allegiance to a foreign country".

Trump and his pal Bibi have abandoned the two state solution, leaving Israel at least tacitly committed to permanent possession of the West Bank and the bits of Syria and Lebanon it currently occupies.

So we will have to have a one state solution.

Some liberals have urged that this can be acceptable if, but only if, Israel abandons Zionism, its fundamental quality as a Jewish state, and becomes a secular and multi-ethnic state in which Jews and Arabs, Jews and Muslims, share political and social equality.

But that is not what Trump, Bibi, and The Lobby are thinking, and any continuing commitment to Zionism by Israel will require that there be no significant non-Jewish component in Israel's population if Israel is not to be forced into highly destabilizing long-term political and social inequality involving what some have called "Israeli Apartheid".

It is clear that the latter is not going to be acceptable to Israel, so the Israelis will have to go for the former.

That will require that the many Arabs now living in Israel proper, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights leave or be pushed out.

It will require ethnic cleansing.

[How would it compare with the cleansing that happened in 1948?]

And the outcry when the Israeli government starts to move that way will be something.

It is not at all clear that Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan would not be forced into joining other Muslim, if not Arab, states in open war against Israel.