On Friday, POLITICO ran a story about DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz seeking the 2016 Democratic Nomination for one of Florida's seats in the U.S. Senate. Buried in the middle of the piece was the revelation that, two years ago, Wasserman Schultz was preparing to hold on to her DNC chairmanship by calling President Obama anti-Semitic and misogynistic.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz has a different sense of herself. According to people who spoke with her, when she sensed Obama was considering replacing her as chair in 2013, she began to line up supporters to suggest the move was both anti-woman and anti-Semitic. Under fire last fall for her leadership, she took Obama’s decision not to remove her then as evidence of renewed strength and said she was confident no one could get her out of the DNC before her term is over at the beginning of 2017, according to sources who’ve spoken with her. She’s also been known to joke around the office about how having a vacation home in New Hampshire might one day be helpful in a presidential run.
It's strange for Schultz to have threatened to take that approach, as it probably would have damaged her much more than Obama. Throughout the Obama presidency, she has constantly supported the President's Israel policies, which many in the pro-Israel community consider to be anti-Israel.
For example, in 2011 when President Obama said that Israel's negotiations with the Palestinian authority must start with the Jewish State agreeing to a withdrawal from the 1949 armistice lines, Ms. Wasserman Schultz supported the President's statement.
"As a Jewish Member of Congress who cares deeply about preserving Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, I am proud that President Obama spoke forcefully about continuing the United States' strong and stalwart support of Israel."
It was Debbie Wasserman Schultz who curried favor with the president by killing the 2014 bipartisan bill adding new sanctions on Iran:
Wasserman Schultz has broken with leading pro-Israel Democrats like New York Senator Chuck Schumer and New Jersey Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker, privately urging her fellow Democrats to follow the White House’s lead by opposing a bipartisan House resolution backing new sanctions on Iran, according to multiple congressional sources close to the debate.
The Iran resolution fell apart in the final days of 2013 after House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) withdrew his support for it following a last minute lobbying campaign helmed by Wasserman Schultz, who sources identified as the “key Democrat” leading the anti-sanctions charge.
Wasserman Schultz’s backroom bid to kill the sanctions measure has angered some Democrats on Capitol Hill and in her hometown of South Florida.
Sometimes, Schultz has demonstrated her support for Obama's Israel policies by her silence. Back in October, when in a private business transaction, Jews purchased homes in the primary Arab neighborhood of Silwan in Jerusalem, it was condemned by the Administration.
The US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions. It only serves to escalate tensions.
Even though this condemnation was de-facto anti-Semitic, as it made Jews the only people in the world that the Obama administration condemned for purchasing homes anywhere they wish, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was silent.
If Debbie Wasserman Schultz ever did try to raise the specter of anti-Semitism against Barack Obama, it would be interesting to see how she would answer the inevitable question, "If he is anti-Semitic, why did you support his polices all these years?"