The Hill:
Ilhan Omar's dual loyalty charge was about more than anti-Semitism
© Stefani Reynolds
"At a recent event, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said, in a reference to American Jewish supporters of Israel, "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says that it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country." When criticized by House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, Omar wrote on Twitter, “I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress.”
But controversy has engulfed a resolution drafted by top Democrats in Congress that, without naming Omar, a Muslim, condemned her remarks as based on the “myth of dual loyalty, including allegations that Jews should be suspected of being disloyal neighbors or citizens.” Younger Democrats think the resolution is unfair to Omar, despite the addition of language condemning anti-Muslim bias.
The fundamental fallacy of Omar’s comment is that national loyalty is a zero-sum game. The more loyal you are to Israel, in her view, the less loyal you must be to the United States. In fact, in my experience, American Jews are both loyal American citizens and strongly supportive of and emotionally loyal to Israel (even when criticizing it). There is no contradiction.
The dual loyalty canard, however, has been used against Jews in the Roman Empire, during the notorious Dreyfus Affair in France, and at its extreme, by the Nazis. Hitler built his satanic political career on the lie that Germany lost World War I because it had been “stabbed in the back” by, among others, the Jews — even though more than 100,000 Jews served in the Germany army."