Last month, the former Illinois congressman Paul Findley died at the age of ninety-eight. For most of his 22-year career in the House of Representatives, he remained uninvolved in foreign policy, but in the late 1970s he paid a visit to South Yemen, during which he met some officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He thereafter developed a reputation, which he himself embraced, as Yasir Arafat’s “best friend in Congress”—singularly focused on exposing the imagined evils of Israel. Jonathan Schanzer elaborates:
After Findley left office, however, things got far uglier. . . . In 1985, he authored They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby. In the book, updated and republished twice, Findley unleashed a torrent of venom toward Israel and its supporters, and lionized Israel’s detractors. He spoke disapprovingly of Jewish money, Jewish groups in Washington, Jewish groups on campus, Jewish congressmen, and Jewish influence. Findley claimed that the pro-Israel community had a stranglehold on congressional politics and American foreign policy. . . . Findley even lamented how the former president Jimmy Carter, no fan of Zionism, was “yielding to the lobby on relations with Israel.” All of these claims were not only false—they also veered into the realm of anti-Semitism.
Findley’s obsession with Israel’s alleged wrongdoing continued to deepen. . . . In 2002, he blamed the 9/11 attacks on Israel. [His] preoccupation with the supposed silencing of Israel’s critics is another distinctive feature of pathological opposition to Israel. He asserted: “On Capitol Hill, criticism of Israel, even in private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated as downright unpatriotic, if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence of free speech was assured when those few who spoke out . . . were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces.”
While most of this, especially the claims about “free speech,” can be found in the mouths of today’s congressional Israel-haters, Schanzer notes that much has also changed since Findley formed his opinions about the Jewish state. Then the Republican party was moving toward the solidly pro-Israel stance it is known for today, while Findley was a holdover of its more pro-Arab wing.
Ilhan Omar, [by contrast], is riding the crest of a very different political wave. Democratic support for Israel has been dropping steadily in recent years. . . . And while there were some positive findings, [a recent] poll found that overall American support for Israel has fallen. As a result of the changes in American culture and attitudes, what used to be considered beyond the pale is slowly becoming mainstream. For Omar and her fellow travelers, this means that displaying overt animosity toward Israel comes at little to no cost. . . . Paul Findley would almost certainly have approved.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-congressman-who-hated-israel/