THE PROBLEM WITH BEING DEMOCRATS FIRST, JEWISH SECOND

Rep. Steve King is critical of Democrats who boycotted Netanyahu's speech to Congress:

U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is slamming Democrats who skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress earlier this month, saying he doesn’t understand how “Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second.”

“There were some 50 or so Democrats that decided they would boycott (Netanyahu’s) speech. ... I don’t understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president,” King told Boston Herald Radio yesterday.

“It says this, they’re knee-jerk supporters of the president’s policy,” the seven-term Republican added. “The president’s policies throughout the Middle East have been a disaster. I would say to them, ‘Name a country that we have better relations with today that we had when Barack Obama took office.’”

When asked by hosts Adriana Cohen and Tom Shattuck if he felt anti-Semitism led some Democratic lawmakers to boycott Netanyahu’s speech, King said, “I see it growing.”

“It’s a phenomenon that I did not expect to see in post-World War II. ... Anti-Semitism is a component of this and just plain liberalism is another component,” King said. “I mean, the president wants the world to be (the way) he myopically believes it is. You have to be a realist.”

Anti-semitism is certainly still a problem everywhere, and those Democrats, Jewish or otherwise, who boycotted the speech, are failing to combat it by staying away from a speech that's meant to help them.