Ron Johnson’s race to the bottom
WASHINGTON WATCH
In the race to the political bottom, Sen. Ron Johnson is sprinting. He’s overtaking Cancun Ted Cruz, who blamed his teenage daughters for his Mexico vacation fiasco while his constituents suffered a winter disaster, and Josh Hawley, who gave a raised fist salute to the insurrections as they prepared to assault the Capitol on January 6.
Those insurrectionists roaming the halls of the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence” were just a fun-loving, patriotic bunch of good ol’ White guys, in Johnson’s view. Like himself.
This wasn’t an “armed insurrection” he insists; they were a “jovial” and “festive” gathering of peaceful “patriots” who “love this country” and wouldn’t do “anything to break a law.”
Ignore the gallows they erected for the vice president or the calls to kill the Speaker of the House, the Confederate flags, the Auschwitz sweatshirt, the murdered cop, six others who died, the 140 or so police officers who were injured, hundreds of rioters arrested, plus the assault weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition collected by the FBI and other authorities. There was no “armed insurrection,” he insisted, because he saw no guns. The FBI refuted that as well.
If there was any violence at the Capitol it was the work of leftist “agent provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters,” said the Wisconsin Republican,
repeating what right-wing media have been saying. He felt safe facing the White mob invading the Capitol wearing red MAGA hats and carrying Trump flags, he insisted. He’d have been worried, he explained, if instead they’d been carrying Black Lives Matter signs. If ever a statement spotlighted raw racism in high places, that comment was it.
Credibility has never been Johnson’s strong suit. He has long been known as a purveyor of conspiracy theories, white supremacist grievances, election fraud lies, smear campaigns and fruitless investigations of Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, Hunter Biden and Ukraine.
On the other hand, when the Department of Labor Inspector-General released a report late last year accusing Secretary Elaine Chao of using her position to aid her family’s privately own shipping business and to do political favors for her husband, Johnson and not a single Republican seemed to notice, much less call for an investigation or ask why Attorney-General Bill Barr’s Justice Department refused to touch it. Could it be that Secretary Chao was married to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell?
Johnson is notorious for leading endless and fruitless investigations, but in the case of the unsuccessful insurrection, he had substantive evidence, but apparently he has only been interested in going
after Democrats.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s declared Johnson has a “tenuous” “grasp on reality” worsened by aligning himself with Trump and he “must go.” His state’s largest paper called him a “featherweight” who should “do the honorable thing and resign after violating his oath.”
The paper also called for freshman GOP Reps. Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Tiffany to resign or be defeated for giving “aid and comfort to an insurrection.” It called the senator and the two freshman representatives “cowardly” and a “threat to democracy” for their roles in inciting the violence.
NOT ONE of the Senate’s 94 brightest bulbs, only the notorious Joseph McCarthy rivals Johnson as the worst senator in Wisconsin’s history.
It may be that he’s simply not smart enough to tell the difference between insurrection and racial justice demonstrations in Portland and other cities. One was a response to the killing of innocent civilians by police and attacks on some small buildings, while the other was a violent attempted coup incited by the president of the United States, a clear effort to subvert the same Constitution self-proclaimed conservatives like Johnson claim to cherish.
Johnson said Trump personally has urged him to break his two-term limit pledge so he can remain in Washington to save the nation from “the devastating and harmful effects” of Democratic rule.
Johnson has been obsessed with investigating Hunter Biden. As chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the previous Congress, he conducted ham-fisted investigations solely intended to aid Trump’s mission of smearing the former vice president’s son to discredit and defeat his father. Johnson set out to demonstrate Joe Biden’s “unfitness for office” but ultimately had to admit finding no “massive smoking guns.”
He also held bogus Senate hearings to “investigate” 2020 election “irregularities,” and “perpetuate the myth that voter fraud” cost Trump the election, the Journal Sentinel noted. The only result was further destroying any lingering credibility Johnson might have on his unobstructed dive to the bottom.
Morning Consult Political Intelligence tracking data shows Johnson could be in trouble if he decides to break his two-term pledge next year. His downward plunge has given him “one of the weakest approval ratings (61%) among GOP voters” and he is “the most unpopular Republican among the broader electorate who is up for re-election next year.” Four of his Senate colleagues already announced their retirement.
Some Democrats believe he is such damaged goods that he would be easier to defeat than someone new. Especially as the pandemic is brought under control, the economy makes a strong recovery, Johnson’s racist rants grow worse, the president remains popular (his approval rating is already 20 points higher than four-year Trump’s best) and Hunter Biden keeps his nose clean.
What I am writing I know is very controversial, even more so because it will not only appear here in English (The Jerusalem Post) but also in Arabic (Al Quds Newspaper) and on a Hebrew website (D’yoma). My proposal that I am presenting here is controversial for Israelis and Palestinians.
What I propose focuses on Jerusalem, but has deep repercussions on the entire Land of Israel/Palestine and all who live here. My proposal is based on parity, equity and mutuality, but it does not presuppose a particular political outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, this proposal is entirely relevant for whether we end up with: one state, two states, a federation or a confederation.
The adoption of my proposal could have a direct impact on every single resident of Jerusalem, making it a much more open and peaceful city, but I am also aware that the proposal itself could also spark a very emotional discussion and public debate that could be less than peaceful. There is no expectation that this proposal would be accepted by either side now, but one of the purposes of this column that I have been writing since 2005 is to trigger new ideas and to challenge us all to look forward.
In 1967, when Israel annexed an expanded the territorial area of Jerusalem to the east, north and south of west Jerusalem, the area now called east Jerusalem, it unilaterally issued Israeli identity cards to all of the Palestinians living in those areas. Until then, from 1948 until 1967 they held Jordanian identity cards and Jordanian passports, as citizens of Jordan. Jordan had annexed the West Bank and east Jerusalem against international law, just as Israel did in the area of east Jerusalem in 1967.
Israel did not automatically grant Israeli citizenship to the Palestinian Jordanian citizens of east Jerusalem. In principle, Israel claimed that the Palestinian Jordanian citizens of east Jerusalem could become Israeli citizens if they applied for citizenship. Jordan threatened the Palestinian Jordanian citizens of east Jerusalem that they would lose their Jordanian citizenship if the agreed to become Israeli citizens and then they would not be able to travel in the Arab world, including in Jordan, where many of them have direct relatives.
Israel also never really intended to grant citizenship to masses of Palestinians in east Jerusalem and made it quite difficult to actually receive an Israeli passport. When the Palestinian Authority was created in 1994, the PA issued Palestinian passports to all of the residents of the West Bank and Gaza, but they were not allowed to issue Palestinian passports to the Palestinians in east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians in east Jerusalem have to exit and enter Israel with an Israeli-issued travel document and then they usually travel around the world on their Jordanian passport.
Unlike the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians in east Jerusalem can travel via Ben-Gurion Airport. The Jordanian passport that Palestinians in east Jerusalem hold is not recognized by Jordan as a document of full and equal citizenship; it is merely a document that enables them to travel. Today, the majority of Palestinians in east Jerusalem have no real connection to Jordan.
MANY ISRAELIS, such as myself, have more than one passport. There is nothing that makes me less Israeli because I also hold an American passport. I have lived in Israel for 42 years, two-thirds of my life. My proposal is that Israel should issue Israeli passports to all of the Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem. Many may reject this. Many will see such a move as an attack on their
Palestinian national identity.
This is why I also propose that the Palestinian Authority, or the Government of the State of Palestine (as they refer to themselves) issue Palestinian passports to all of the Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem. It is true that traveling abroad on a Palestinian passport is not easy and a visa is required for entering most countries – the Jordanian passport is much better than the Palestinian passport and combined with the Israeli passport there are many countries that one can enter without a prior visa. Israel has occupied and controlled east Jerusalem for 52 years.
Most of us living here in Jerusalem today do not remember a different reality. Israel has refused to recognize that the Palestinian of east Jerusalem are part of the Palestinian nation and may one day become citizens of a future Palestinian state. Israel also refuses to grant the Palestinians of east Jerusalem full equal rights – including the right to vote for the Knesset. The Palestinian of east
Jerusalem should be granted full equality – in Israel and in Palestine. They should have the right to vote for the Knesset and for the Palestinian Parliament and president.
Why can’t the 350,000 Palestinians of east Jerusalem hold both an Israeli and a Palestinian passport? This does not preclude any of the possible permanent status solutions for Jerusalem, but it does treat almost 40% of Jerusalemites with respect, dignity and equality. It also opens the door to create new models of relations between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples – based on equality and a shared future. This could be appropriate for a two-states solution based on borders of peace, not walls, fences and barbed wire.
It could also be appropriate for a one democratic state option as well as any federal or confederal arrangements. This proposal ensures that Jerusalem will remain one open peaceful city regardless of the political framework that is agreed to in the future. This proposal also contains within it the possibility of developing a new relationship which could be the catalyst for adopting new paradigms for peace.
Throughout the failed peace process of more than two decades, the “wisdom” of the decision makers was to leave Jerusalem until the end of the process. This, in my mind, proved to be a false and dangerous premise. I have always believed that Jerusalem should be first based on the belief that if we can solve the Jerusalem question, all of the other questions will be easier to resolve.
And so, I return to Jerusalem first and offer a suggestion which could relaunch a discussion of how we can truly make Jerusalem the city of peace and the core of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The writer is a political and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to the State of Israel and to peace between Israel and her neighbors. His latest book, In Pursuit of Peace in Israel and Palestine, was published by Vanderbilt University Press. It is now out in Arabic and in Portuguese as well.
Nobody knows exactly when Jews first arrived in what later would become Germany. In all probability they came with the Romans who had been warring with Germanic tribes even before the Common Era. Arguably, there were Jews living as Roman citizens in the Rhineland as early as the second century CE.
What is known is that there was a Jewish presence in 321 CE in Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, a Roman colony on the Rhine River and the historical nucleus of today’s city of Cologne. It was in that year that Emperor Constantine in a written edict allowed the colonia to appoint Jews to the municipal council. This is why a German organization, the Association 321 – 2021: 1,700 years of Jewish Life in Germany, decided to declare 2021 an official anniversary and celebrate it with a big splash – with the blessing of the body politic as well as that of the Jewish community.
This anniversary year provides an opportunity to raise public awareness of the long Jewish history in Germany among the general populace. It was by no means a history of undivided happiness, culminating in the singular crimes of the Nazi dictatorship. And yet, starting with the Emancipation, Jews have managed to make a huge impact on German culture, science and on the economy. Recalling both the oppression perpetrated against Jews and the contributions by the Jews will be very much in focus in 2021.
For the Jewish world, the anniversary year is a good opportunity to look back at the enormous contribution to the development of Judaism by the Jewish community in Germany. Many features of the Jewish world as we know it today, can be traced to German Jewry.
Ashkenaz, of course, is the original name of Germany in Jewish tradition while the term Germania is of Roman provenience. Ashkenaz appears in the Torah as the name of one of Noah’s great-grandsons, but starting in the 11th century CE it came to designate the area of the Rhineland, the Palatinate (today in Western Germany) and parts of Northern France. How the biblical name ended up being identified with this specific region, is not really clear.
In any case, it was the cradle of German Jewry in particular and of Ashkenazi Jewry in general. A defining influence on the emerging Ashkenazi world originated in the 10th and the 11th century in the so-called SHUM cities, an acronym for Shpira, Vormayza, and Magentza, today’s Speyer, Worms and Mainz. None other than Rashi – whose commentary we still read in Talmud editions – studied at the Worms yeshiva around 1060.
Groundbreaking halachic rulings were issued by poskim (scholars who determine Jewish law) from the SHUM cities. The most prominent among the SHUM rabbis was Rabbenu Gershom. Gershom was born in 960 in Metz, in the Lorraine area – today in France – but later he headed the famous yeshiva in Worms.
ONE OF his formative rulings was the prohibition of polygamy, which adapted the structure of Jewish families to that of the Occident. Interestingly, Gershom also forbade reading letters by people who were not their intended recipients. In the 12th and 13th centuries SHUM deciders issued additional important edicts, known as Takkanot Shum, which dealt, among other topics, with business ethics.
Another important influence on the development of Jewish thinking was the Hassidei Ashkenaz movement. Starting out in the Bavarian city of Regensburg and in the SHUM cities in the 11th century, the movement took hold throughout Germany and later spread to other countries as well. Hassidei Ashkenaz stressed God’s incorporeality and omnipresence. In order to better understand God’s nature and true will, members of the movement immersed themselves in the study of supernatural phenomena and miracles, making an important contribution to Jewish mysticism. Their search for the right path also included turning away from worldly things.
In the following centuries, Talmud study and deep piety remained the foundation of Jewish life. If there was a continuous Jewish presence in Germany in the Middle Ages, it was primarily for lack of a strong central rule in German territories. Thus, German Jews escaped wholesale expulsion like the edicts of expulsion in England in 1290 or in Spain in 1492.
This does not mean that there were no regional acts of wanton and violent persecution, including regional banishments. Yet, despite the ups and downs, or, often enough, downs and downs, German Jewry remained a strong force in the Jewish world. The list of rabbinical luminaries living and teaching in Germany was long, even as the demographic center of European Jewry shifted to the east. According to estimates, some 60,000 to 80,000 Jews lived in Germany in the second half of the 18th century – just one tenth of the Jewish population in the Polish-Lithuanian dual monarchy at that time.
In the 19th century, changes that took place in Germany would substantially shape the development of the modern Jewish world. Germany became the cradle of three streams of Judaism as we know them today: Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox (or Neo-Orthodox as it was originally called).
The point of departure of Reform Judaism in Germany was liturgy. Its pioneers strove to adapt services to modern times. In Reform synagogues, which began appearing in the second decade of the 19th century, the separation between men and women was gradually eased, organs were introduced and German at least partially replaced Hebrew as the language of the services.
There was, however, more than liturgy at stake. Rabbi Abraham Geiger, considered the key founder of the Reform movement, called for a new understanding of those mitzvot that he saw as the result of historical developments – and therefore alterable – among them the rules of kashrut, as opposed to those mitzvot that were regarded as universal.
FOR SOME Jews the Reform movement went too far, even though they favored a modernization of Jewish religious life as well. One of them was Rabbi Zacharias Frankel who founded the Conservative movement which put greater emphasis on Jewish tradition and the history of the Jewish people.
Change was introduced in Orthodox Judaism, too. Rabbis Samson Raphael Hirsch and Azriel Hildesheimer insisted on the compatibility of an Orthodox way of life with secular education, including academic education, which both of whom had enjoyed in addition to their religious studies.
In 1873, Hildesheimer founded the rabbinical seminary in Berlin, which soon became an important rabbinical training center known and respected throughout the Jewish world.
Many Orthodox Jewish educators set out to ensure that young Jewish children obtained profound Jewish knowledge even as the winds of change were blowing strong. One of the most prominent was Rabbi Seligmann Baer Bamberger of Würzburg, the Würzburger Rav. In 1856, he founded, the Israelite Institution for Education and Studies – an elementary school which combined secular studies with a rigorous religious curriculum.
Germany was also the home of a forerunner of religious Zionism, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874). Kalischer, a Talmudic scholar, considered Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel as a contribution to the coming of the Messiah. In this, his views were similar to the concept of the State of Israel as the beginning of redemption.
In the 19th and early 20th century, Germany also became a magnet for countless Jewish intellectuals and ideologues from across the Jewish political spectrum, mainly from Eastern Europe. Many studied at German universities while planning a new Jewish future – each one according to his own Weltanschauung. This rich Jewish life came to a tragic halt when Nazi hordes forced a major part of German Jews into exile
– and murdered nearly all of those who had not managed to escape (and repeated throughout much of Europe).
Today, there is a thriving Jewish community in Germany again. The registered membership of the Jewish communities is close to 100,000 while many other Jews – among then a large number of Israelis living in Germany – chose to remain unaffiliated.
Let there be no mistake: We know that the historical glory of German Jewry cannot be restored. We have, however, succeeded in creating quite a vibrant Jewish life. In today’s Germany, there are some 90 Jewish communities, Jewish day schools, including five high schools and a multitude of Jewish institutions dealing with all aspects of communal life.
Without trying to go back in time, we do try to remember and to commemorate the history of Jews on German soil. This is why our three rabbinical seminaries, a liberal, an orthodox and a conservative one, are named after the founding fathers of the movements whose traditions they represent: Rabbi Abraham Geiger, Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer and Rabbi Zacharias Frankel. Yes, 2021 is a good year to honor the illustrious past as we march on into the future.