Reality must match political priority

This past week, two left-leaning American politicians visited Israel, using it as a backdrop to spin their narratives.

One of them was Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). He reportedly came to Israel without the customary prior coordination with Israeli governmental authorities or notification of the U.S. embassy. He tried to enter a restricted military area to stage what amounted to a political stunt and was unsuccessful.

The other was Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama administration chief of staff and former mayor of Chicago. He came to Israel to lecture its citizens about his delusional vision of how peace can be achieved through the failed model of a so-called two-state solution. He then effectively threatened that if Israel did not comply with this solution, U.S. support for Israel would be rescinded.

Both strongly oppose the defensive war against the terrorist Iranian regime.

The plan followed by the two men is obvious: Hint at the possibility of running for national office while traveling to Israel. Then, to appeal to a tight-knit antisemitic faction of the Democratic Party, either flat out rebuke the present democratically elected Israeli government or manufacture the appearance of an incident and defame that government.

Absent this tawdry scheme to appeal to the Democrats’ antisemitic faction, how else can the choice of Israel as a venue for a bid for national office be explained, rather than a standard local campaign stop in the United States?

Ironically, the plan was bad. The goal of pleasing the antisemitic, anti-Israel faction of the Democratic Party is unrealistic and unachievable. Appealing to a fanatical Marxist and Islamist constituency is simply a waste of time.

It’s because—besides being fanatically opposed to the very existence of Israel—this constituency is characteristically anti-American and anti-free market. Moreover, Khanna and Emanuel cannot pass the faction’s purity test without becoming outright antisemites and communists.

Despite trying desperately to court this extremist constituency’s favor, they are not charter members of the cadre. The Democrats’ Marxist-Islamist faction accepts nothing less than total party discipline and lockstep robotic adherence to its agenda. Neither politician can meet this impossible standard and remain a viable candidate for national office.

At the same time, the actions of Khanna and Emanuel were a genuine betrayal of the much larger pro-America/pro-Israel community and risk losing its support in the coming election cycle.

On Tisha B’Av, the day we memorialize the destruction of the Holy Temple and the ensuing exile, we recite Jeremiah’s scroll of Lamentations. I am reminded of how Midrash Eicha Rabbah (2:20) interprets a verse in Lamentations (2:16). It presciently speaks to the matter at hand.

The midrash poses the question of why Jeremiah reverses the order of the letters peh and ayin in chapter two of Lamentations’ acrostic verses. It answers that the reason is that peh means “mouth” and ayin means “eye.”

Thus, acrostically and in life, it is good practice for the eyes to see before the mouth describes what has been seen. In essence, Jeremiah prophesied that enemies of Israel and the Jewish people would say with their mouths what they had not seen with their eyes.

Khanna is a perfect example, with his recent unilateral attempt to access a closed Israeli military zone without prior coordination. He spoke his piece while blinding himself to the reality of what he had done. -Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, wrote that a statement claiming the U.S. embassy was involved was “not true” and that “We did not know a member of Congress was coming.”

He also stated, “We would have said don’t go to the restricted zone,” and that Khanna was not “held at gunpoint.”

We should not ignore the sage counsel of Jeremiah. Seeing reality must be the priority, not spinning a narrative.

Wake up, world, and dismiss the unfounded, agenda-driven tales of the politicos.