I am not remotely anti-Semitic so my views are not coming from any sort of prejudice towards people who are of the Jewish faith. I don’t think my home county had any Jewish people when I was growing up and may not now. My junior college may or may not have had some. I didn’t care because to me, whether or not a person has a particular faith or even believes doesn’t matter to me. Since my college days I have had Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu friends.

Newly elected Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made some comments concerning the American ties to Israel. She is from Michigan and the first Muslim woman elected to a national office. She is more likely to get her facts from the Arabic news media. I don’t say American because those of us who watch European and Asian network news get vastly different viewpoints and pictures. Her comments were to separate the state of Israel from the dominant religion of 75% of Israelis. The other 25% is composed of 18% Muslim, 2% Christian, and the remainder is various ancient religions.

We know Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party had only a fourth of the votes in The Knesset’s 120 seats. In a parliament the governing body must have a majority. Netanyahu has had to get his majority by using the smaller parties. Four of those are militant right wingers who hate Palestinians who lived on the land before the Jewish refugees pushed them off their family lands. The building of new apartment communities on the West Bank (East side of Israel) is highly contentious since it takes land Israel had agreed belonged to the West Bank Palestinians.

Representative Omar’s comments were the same as a very large minority of the Jewish population. Add that to the ethnic Arab population and Netanyahu’s policies must go towards the far right parties to stay in power.

Israel has tied itself to religion for many reasons but the major reason is guilt. Jewish people have lived in Palestine for centuries in peace with their Arab neighbors. They worked and fought together against the Turks in World War I. After World War II refugees from Europe, and the Soviet Union settled in Palestine conducting a guerilla war against the British and resident Arabs. When the British withdrew after giving them statehood, their Arab neighbors attacked. Zionists made it clear Israel would be a first step towards annexing Gaza, parts of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel has used the world’s guilt about the camps to get financial and diplomatic support. Without that guilt and influence, we probably would have dropped them as the United Kingdom and France already have.

Omar speaks the unpleasant truth; we are unable to separate the belligerent government from the religion.