The Oh, Hello and

Welcome to Behind the News my name is Doug Henwood

two segments today first in seconds Noah Cohen will explain why it's not anti-Semitic to talk about an Israel lobby, and at the bottom of the hour the political

scientist Thearia-Frankos explores the various angles of the Green New Deal.

First, the Israel Lobby.

The other day, Elon Omar, one of several exciting new members of the House of

Representatives, got in trouble for daring to say on Twitter that AIPAC, the America

Israel Public Affairs Committee, is part of an Israel Lobby that raises and spends lots of money to cultivate U.S. support of Israel.

For this, she was roundly condemned as an anti-semite across the mainstream political spectrum.

What precisely is Omar's offense? Apparently you're not supposed to say there's an Israel lobby and that AIPAC is one of its most prominent actors.

But there is an Israel lobby and AIPAC is one of its most prominent actors.

If you visit AIPAC's website, one of the first things you see on the

upper left corner of the screen is its logo with the tagline America's pro-Israel lobby.

I guess it's okay if they say it, but not if a Muslim woman born in Somalia does. Now there's

no denying there are real anti-Semites in this world and some even use criticism

of Israel as a cover for their bigotry, but that's not the issue here. Here's Noah Coleman, a staff writer for Jewish

currents, founded in 1946, which identifies as a magazine of the Jewish left, to help us think about

these matters. Noah Coleman.

Elon Omar got in a lot of trouble for a us think about these matters. Noah Coleman.

Elon Omar got in a lot of trouble for what was perceived as anti-Semitic tweets.

Do you think that's a fair characterization of what she said?

What she said was not anti-Semitic.

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