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Ted Lieu Retracts Dual Loyalty Charge on U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Falsely Claims He Didn’t Know It Was Anti-Semitic

Ted Lieu Retracts Dual Loyalty Charge on U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Falsely Claims He Didn’t Know It Was Anti-Semitic

Contra to Lieu’s insinuation later that he was unaware of the significance of using the dual loyalty trope against a Jewish American, he knew exactly what he was doing.

https://youtu.be/Gmv30uvdqHQ

In the aftermath of Israel’s security-based decision Thursday to bar pro-BDS Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) entry into the country, their west coast Congressional colleague Ted Lieu (D-CA) was one of many Democrats who were outraged.

In fact, Lieu was so upset that he took to the Twitter machine to voice his frustrations, and later in an interview on CNN. He took particular aim at David Friedman, who is the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

Friedman’s crime was to issue a statement of support for Israel’s decision, which angered Lieu. Here’s what Friedman wrote:

In response, Lieu accused Friedman, a Jewish American, of having dual loyalties in a tweet that has since been deleted (hat tip: Aaron Bandler):

https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter/status/1162147241663987712

In the CNN interview he did later that day with Wolf Blitzer, Lieu repeated the dual loyalty charge and called twice for Ambassador Friedman to resign (emphasis mine):

LIEU: It is outrageous that the U.S. government is working against having an American go visit a relative in Israel. Ambassador Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, actually I think he should resign, because he doesn’t seem to understand that his allegiance is to America, not to a foreign power. He should be defending the rights of Americans to travel to other countries and to visit their relatives.

BLITZER: Well, elaborate on that – Ambassador Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel. When you speak about an allegiance to a foreign power, what are you suggesting?

LIEU: Ambassador Friedman issued a statement today, supporting Israel’s decision to ban two Americans from visiting Israel. That is an outrageous statement that Ambassador Friedman issued. He should be fighting to get these two Americans into Israel, one of which wants to visit her grandmother.

BLITZER: But the ambassador was basically saying what the president of the United States, his boss, was saying.

LIEU: Well, I wish President Trump would resign. I don’t think he’s going to do that, but certainly, I can call on Ambassador Friedman to resign. His allegiance, again, is to America, not to a foreign power and to the Constitution of the United States, not to the president.

Blitzer, who is the son of Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors, did not call Lieu out for his repeated use of the anti-Semitic dual loyalty trope against Friedman and instead moved on to a discussion about House Judiciary Committee subpoenas as they related to the Mueller report.

Watch the interview segment below where Lieu talked about Friedman:

While Blitzer conveniently let Lieu’s use of the anti-Semitic trope slide, Friedman did not:

Lieu had deleted his tweet by the time Friedman responded to the accusation. The Congressman played the ignorance card in a follow-up tweet, insinuating that he didn’t know before this week that playing the dual loyalty card was considered harmful to the Jewish community:

He posted a similar tweet Friday afternoon:

In an analysis of Lieu’s remarks, the DC Examiner’s Becket Adams gave him the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that the Congressman was “an idiot” but “almost certainly not anti-Semitic.” The reason given was because Lieu accused two Republican Congressmen who are not Jewish Americans of the same dual loyalty charge on Thursday:

Now for a word in the congressman’s defense: He is almost certainly not anti-Semitic. He is just an idiot.

As it turns out, Lieu tends to accuse a lot of people, not just Jewish Americans, of having dual loyalty to Israel.

Here are the tweets Lieu wrote to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), which are very similar to the one he wrote to Friedman:

 

Unfortunately for Lieu, a quick Google search proves that contrary to his insinuation that he was unaware of the significance of using the dual loyalty trope against a Jewish American, he was well aware of what it meant.

In an opinion piece he wrote in July in response to President Trump’s “go back” tweets about The Squad, here’s what Lieu said (bolded emphasis added by me):

The suspicion that immigrants are not to be trusted or are unpatriotic is not just wrong, it is un-American. And dangerous. Yet it has marred America’s past, including with the 19th-century “Yellow Peril” hysteria, the internment during World War II of more than 110,000 people who happened to be of Japanese descent and accusations against Jewish Americans of harboring dual loyalties.

Also, back in February Lieu issued a statement condemning Rep. Omar’s “all about the Benjamins” tweet, noting that it was a “deeply hurtful stereotype” to use against Jews.

Lieu was also front and center during the controversy that swirled around Omar when she once again fanned anti-Semitic flames by using the dual loyalty trope herself. Lieu voted in favor of the watered down “anti-hate” resolution that was crafted in the aftermath of Omar’s comments and which passed in the U.S. House in early March.

That resolution specifically mentioned the dual loyalty issue four times.

Lieu is not ignorant when it comes to understanding what anti-Semitism is and isn’t. He’s also not truly “sorry” for writing that tweet. He knew exactly what he was doing when he accused Friedman of allegiance to a foreign country.

— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. –-

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Comments

I guess all Asians aren’t smart.

Dual citizenship is dual loyalty. It should not be allowed.

    puhiawa in reply to mrboxty. | August 17, 2019 at 2:28 pm

    It was against the law until Ted Kennedy.

      Milhouse in reply to puhiawa. | August 18, 2019 at 3:20 am

      What do you mean by that?

      Milhouse in reply to puhiawa. | August 19, 2019 at 2:41 pm

      Seriously, what do you mean by it? It was never against the law, and what does Ted Kennedy have to do with it? (Congress did once upon a time make a law, but it was blatantly unconstitutional and was struck down.)

    George_Kaplan in reply to mrboxty. | August 17, 2019 at 7:15 pm

    I don’t even have a problem with dual citizenship or dual loyalty, depending on to whom that loyalty is – whether it is a friendly ally or a hostile power. The fact a person swears American citizenship and officially sacrifices other citizenship does not mean they sacrifice their other allegiance, or even that America is their primary allegiance. Citizenship is a legality not a reality. Those who have dual, triple etc citizenship merely reflect the reality that loyalty is a complex thing. While a government official might have a duty to give America sole allegiance, does that hold true of ordinary Americans, and what of Ilhan and those whose primary loyalty is against America?

    Milhouse in reply to mrboxty. | August 18, 2019 at 3:19 am

    1. Friedman is not a dual citizen.

    2. What do you mean by “should not be allowed”? How can you prevent it? If someone is born a citizen of two countries, or if a US citizen acquires citizenship in another country without renouncing his US citizenship, how can you prevent that? The US constitution says that anyone born or naturalized in the US is a citizen; Congress has no authority to change that.

    The only thing the US can do against dual citizenship is to require people who are naturalizing to renounce their former citizenship. Guess what? It does that. What more do you want?

      BerettaTomcat in reply to Milhouse. | August 18, 2019 at 11:17 pm

      “The US constitution says that anyone born .. in the US is a citizen … .”

      I must have missed that clause.

        Milhouse in reply to BerettaTomcat. | August 19, 2019 at 1:57 am

        “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.” Full stop. Neither Congress nor any court can change that, regardless of what the person does. US citizenship, once validly obtained by birth or naturalization, cannot be lost involuntarily. Therefore the US has no choice but to accept dual citizenship.

          BerettaTomcat in reply to Milhouse. | August 19, 2019 at 1:57 pm

          You omitted the all important “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase above. Too bad the US is not currently adhering to this qualifier, and shame on you for seeming endorsing their unlawful practice.

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | August 19, 2019 at 2:43 pm

          Subject to the jurisdiction means that the person has to obey US laws, can be arrested and tried if he doesn’t, and can be sued in a US court. The only people not subject to US jurisdiction are foreign diplomats, and foreigners who are not in the US and never plan to come here.

      BerettaTomcat in reply to Milhouse. | August 18, 2019 at 11:27 pm

      “How can you prevent it?”

      Simple — treat any claim of citizenship elsewhere as a renunciation of one’s US citizenship.

        Milhouse in reply to BerettaTomcat. | August 19, 2019 at 1:58 am

        You can’t, when the person openly says he’s not renouncing it.

          BerettaTomcat in reply to Milhouse. | August 19, 2019 at 2:02 pm

          All the government has to do is proclaim the acceptance of citizenship elsewhere is an act of renunciation of US citizenship. I believe that’s effectively what happened in WWII when we executed US citizens of German descent who went to Germany and returned as spies and saboteurs (see Ex Parte Quirin as I recall).

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | August 19, 2019 at 2:47 pm

          All the government has to do is proclaim the acceptance of citizenship elsewhere is an act of renunciation of US citizenship.

          It can’t do that. It can’t proclaim things that are obviously not so. If the person says he is not renouncing his citizenship, the government can’t proclaim that he is.

          I believe that’s effectively what happened in WWII when we executed US citizens of German descent who went to Germany and returned as spies and saboteurs (see Ex Parte Quirin as I recall).

          No, it is not. Hans Haupt was and remained a US citizen. His claim that this made him exempt from being a prisoner of war was rejected. US citizens who make war on the USA can be captured and held prisoner just like anyone else, and it is well established that POWs do not have the right of habeas corpus. (Boumbedienne did not change that; it merely says that if the person claims not to be a POW, the government has to establish that he is.)

    ahad haamoratsim in reply to mrboxty. | August 21, 2019 at 1:22 pm

    Other than his being Jewish do you have any evidence David Friedman holds dual citizenship? Or is it enough for you that he could? What about Cong Scalise?

The odd thing is Tblaib has made it clear that she is a Palestinian before she is an American.

    guyjones in reply to puhiawa. | August 17, 2019 at 6:56 pm

    Indeed. This vile bigot and Jew-hating Muslim supremacist draped herself in the “Palestinian” flag at her swearing-in ceremony.

    Imagine if a Jewish Congressional Representative had draped himself/herself in the flag of Israel, at a swearing-in? We’d never hear the end of it, from the Muslims Jew-haters and their Leftist dhimmi allies.

    But, vile Tlaib can do that, and, then, have the temerity to sling accusations of “dual loyalty” against American Jews. Disgusting.

LibraryGryffon | August 17, 2019 at 2:46 pm

I never realized that as an American I had the “Right” to demand and be granted entry into any other country, no matter what.

talk about dual allegiance: lieu & loo…

Well done Stacey Matthews! You’ve got Ted Lieu dead to rights on the dual-loyalty trope being anti-semitic.

Lieu never says a good thing, just one wrong thing after another. Why doesn’t he leave politics if our policies bother him so much? In the meantime he’s just a little irritant and best put on *ignore*.

Oh how precious! Lieu says your allegiance should be to America, and not to a foreign power.

Of course, it is too much to ask that our Congresscritter allegiance should be to American CITIZENS, and not foreign INVADERS!

Lieu is a world class POS. Certainly fits with the Brit slang term “loo”.

This guy is as stupid and useless as alexandra cortez.

It looks like the Democrats are going down the same path as the UK Labour Party with Jeremy Corbyn with full support of Antisemitism.