Iran Deal: Reich Attacks Jewish ‘Axis’ Powers

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has blamed a Jewish “axis” of power for “polarizing” the debate around the Iran deal.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Reich said that the “Nentanyahu-AIPAC-Adelson-Republican axis” posed “a serious danger to America, Israel, and American Jews.” He slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “interfering in American politics as no foreign leader has ever done before,” and blamed him for turning Democrats against Israel. He did not mention Obama’s charge that Republicans are making “common cause” with Iranian hard-liners.

Reich also claimed: “Polls suggest a solid majority of American Jews support Obama and the administration’s diplomacy.” In fact, recent polls show a plurality of American Jews oppose the deal. Like President Barack Obama, he attacked AIPAC for running ads against the deal–ignoring the millions being spent by left-wing groups like J Street to support it.

The term “axis” is an odd choice, applied to Jews, given that Nazi Germany was one of the Axis Powers of World War II, during which the Third Reich murdered six million Jews.

An editorial by Tablet magazine last week called on supporters of the Iran deal to stop using antisemitic themes: “Accusing Senators and Congressmen whose misgivings about the Iran deal are shared by a majority of the U.S. electorate of being agents of a foreign power, or of selling their votes to shadowy lobbyists, or of acting contrary to the best interests of the United States, is the kind of naked appeal to bigotry and prejudice that would be familiar in the politics of the pre-Civil Rights Era South.”