In a recent interview, NPR’s Diane Rehm asked Senator Bernie Sanders if he is also a citizen of Israel. (He is not.) Rehm seems to have gotten the idea from a blatantly anti-Semitic online article listing Congressmen who allegedly hold dual citizenship in Israel. What led her and her staff to take the notion seriously in the first place? David Bernstein writes:
For the answer, I think we need to look at what passes for “mainstream” discourse in circles that are highly critical of Israel and its American supporters. . . . [S]ince Bernie Sanders announced he was running for president, he has been pilloried on a variety of “progressive” websites . . . for not holding “progressive” views on Israel, i.e., for not being hostile to Israel. The (false) assumption is that someone on the left would naturally be anti-Israel, unless he has some ulterior motive.
Given this context, in which it’s become acceptable on a wide swath of the left to question the motivations of Jews who support Israel, and in which it’s considered anomalous for a strong progressive to be at all sympathetic to Israel (and Sanders is both sympathetic and often quite critical), I don’t find it entirely shocking that a website listing Sanders and other prominent Jews as Israeli citizens didn’t strike Rehm and her staff as inherently ridiculous. . . .
[Many progressives] don’t mind playing on age-old anti-Semitic themes to advance their agenda. In other cases, they are so certain that their negative views of Israel are correct that they truly can’t believe that anyone would disagree with them unless blinded by loyalty to Israel. When they make what might otherwise seem to be scurrilous accusations, they are not being disingenuous.
Read more on Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/06/11/why-did-diane-rehm-fall-for-an-anti-semitic-hoax/