It should go without saying that these two things can simultaneously be true: that criticism of the Israeli government and AIPAC's lobbying for U.S. support of it is not anti-Semitism, and that Representative Ilhan Omar'srecent tweet about "the Benjamins" was a mark of poor judgement, for which she has commendably apologized.
AIPAC does indeed exert massive sway over American politics and works to prop up a brutal, unjust status quo of perpetual occupation in Israel-Palestine, but there are ways to critique this responsibly, without resorting to words and phrases that evoke unsavory tropes.
It is especially important to be able to so in the current moment, when politicians on the left are under much greater scrutiny when it comes to accusations of anti-Semitism, particularly black and Muslim politicians.
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