WarSclerotic

US President Donald Trump said Monday that freshman Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar “should be ashamed of herself” over tweets suggesting that a powerful pro-Israel interest group pays members of Congress to support Israel.

The Minnesota congresswoman “unequivocally” apologized earlier Monday after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats rebuked her. She said she had no intention of offending anyone and thanked her colleagues for educating her on anti-Semitic tropes.

On Air Force One flying to a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas, Trump said that Omar had made “a terrible statement” and that he didn’t find her apology to be adequate. Asked what she should have said, Trump replied, “She knows what to say.”

Omar issued the apology following a cascade of criticism from lawmakers and Jewish groups.

“Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole,” Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said in a statement.

“We have always to be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize,” she added.

Omar had faced growing accusations of anti-Semitism after writing Sunday on Twitter that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s call for her and Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) to be admonished over their criticism of Israel was “all about the Benjamins baby,” a slang term for $100 bills.

Asked to clarify who she believed is paying politicians to support Israel, Omar named AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby group.

Though an influential player on Capital Hill, AIPAC does not endorse candidates or contribute to their campaigns.

Omar on Monday stood by her criticism of the “problematic role of lobbyists in our politics,” lumping in AIPAC with the pro-gun National Rifle Association and oil companies.

“It’s gone on too long and we must be willing to address it,” she said.

The US president is himself no stranger to accusations of using anti-Semitic tropes about Jews and money.

In a 2015 speech in Washington to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Trump told the audience: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.”

He also said: “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals? Probably more than any room I’ve ever spoken.”

Leveling corruption accusations against rival presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Trump in 2016 tweeted, then swiftly deleted, an image depicting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton next to a Star of David superimposed over piles of money.

A former employee wrote in a 1991 book that Trump once told him: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day,” The Guardian reported.

Last year Trump said he rejects white supremacism and anti-Semitism, but did not say how he would counter the phenomena and angrily rejected claims that his rhetoric spurs division.

Agencies contributed to this report.

France said Monday night that the number of anti-Semitic acts in the country soared last year, and decried the “poison” of hate.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said that the total number of recorded anti-Semitic acts rose to 541 in 2018 from 311 in 2017.

He spoke in the Paris suburb of Sainte-Genevieve-du-Bois, where vandals chopped down trees planted in honor of a Jewish man tortured and killed in 2006.

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The incident was the latest in a recent string of racist vandalism.

France’s Interior Minister Christophe Castaner speaks at a press conference in Strasbourg, eastern France, December 11, 2018. (Jean-Francois Badias/AP)

Castaner vowed that his government will fight anti-Semitism, calling it “an attack against hope.”

He did not link the rise to any specific groups.

A prominent French Jewish watchdog group said in December that widespread protests in the country over taxes were giving rise to anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The head of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism, or BNVCA, Sammy Ghozlan, said that “the ‘Yellow Vests’ movement has an anti-Semitic base that repeats conspiracy theories about Jews and power.”

Launched in November as a protest against a proposed rise in diesel and fuel taxes, the movement has expanded into an anti-government drive featuring violent riots that have shut down the French capital several times. Some protesters have been filmed carrying signs and chanting slogans describing French President Emmanuel Macron as a “whore of the Jews” and their “puppet.”

‘Yellow vest’ protesters clash with riot police amid tear gas on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, on December 8, 2018. (AFP/Zakaria Abdelkafi)

Such language “was present from the very beginning of the protests and persists,” Ghozlan said, although he added that it exists “on the margins” of the protests.

In the first 10 months of 2018, more than 2,300 French Jews reportedly made aliyah, or moved to Israel, while the number of those seeking information about aliyah from the foundation has reportedly increased.

Israel is set to sign a free-trade agreement with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union in the near future, according to officials in Moscow and Jerusalem.

Incidentally, Iran is also in advanced talks about creating a free trade zone with the union, known as EAEU. However, each country would sign its own free-trade agreement (FTA) with the union, which would mean that Jerusalem would not be able to trade freely with Tehran, or other states signing similar agreements.

“The negotiations with the EAEU were launched in Moscow in April 2018, following positive results of a comprehensive Joint Feasibility Study conducted by the parties,” a spokesperson for the Economy Ministry told The Times of Israel on Monday.

“The agreement will cover various aspects of trade in goods, such as rules of origin, customs cooperation, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, e-commerce, dispute settlement, and others.”

Tehran’s ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaei said Friday that he expects the Iranian parliament to ratify the free-trade agreement with the EAEU “in the near future,” according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.

“The agreement is very important for Iran… because it opens the gates to a big market for our country, and also opens the Iranian market to Russia and northern countries,” he said.

Asked what significance, if any, Iran’s joining the EAEU free trade zone would have for Israel, the ministry spokesperson referred this reporter to the Prime Minister’s Office. The PMO did not respond to a query by the time of publication.

“The State of Israel supports increasing the economic pressure on Iran so that it will change its behavior,” a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel, speaking on condition of anonymity and declining to elaborate.

In this picture released by the office of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Tehran, Nov. 1, 2017. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In addition to Israel and Iran, the EAEU is expected to sign FTAs “in the near future” with Singapore, India and Egypt, Russia’s First Deputy Minister of Industry Sergey Tsyb said, according to Russia Today.

Tsyp said World Trade Organization member states currently use over 7,500 non-tariff measures such as quotas, licenses, restrictions and embargoes, according to the Kremlin-funded outlet.

“Therefore, in our opinion, it would be very productive if we actively move towards the conclusion of agreements on the free-trade zone,” he said.

During the first round of negotiations between Jerusalem and the EAEU last year, the parties “agreed on the structure of the agreement, discussed proposals for mutual access to markets, trade facilitation, application of protective sanitary and phytosanitary measures, as well as technical regulation mechanisms,” Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov said in an interview last week [Russian link].

In October, during a second round of negotiations held in Israel, the parties had “a substantive discussion of the main sections of the draft agreement,” the envoy went on, noting that the third round of talks are set to take place in late February or early March in one of the EAEU member states.

Russian Ambassador to Israel Anatoly Viktorov at the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv, November 2019 (Raphael Ahren/TOI)

“It is premature to talk about how such a treaty can change the structure of the Russian-Israeli foreign trade turnover and how significant the changes will be, including because it is not yet clear when the document can be signed,” Viktorov said.

Israel is currently Russia’s 41st-biggest foreign trade partner, with annual trade consistently growing and currently at $2.5 billion.

“The promising areas of trade and economic cooperation include projects to create food clusters in Russia using Israeli technologies, as well as the transfer of industrial facilities and vehicles in Israel to gas-engine fuel using Russian technologies,” Viktorov said.

The ambassador also praised Israel for defying “strong external pressure” and refusing to join the US and other Western nations in imposing economic sanctions on Russia. “We hope that our Israeli partners will continue to adhere to this line,” he added.

Besides Russia, current EAEU members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Together, member states have 183 million inhabitants and cover an area of over 20 million square kilometers.

“The Union is being created to comprehensively upgrade, raise the competitiveness of and cooperation between the national economies, and to promote stable development in order to raise the living standards of the nations of the Member-State,” according to its website.

In existence since 2015, it guarantees the “free movement of goods, services, capital and labor, pursues coordinated, harmonized and single policy” in the areas determined by the founding treaty and international agreements.

FTAs aim to increase trade between countries by eliminating or reducing barriers to trade such as import duties.

“Israeli exporters currently benefit from preferential market access to 41 countries thanks to FTAs that were signed and entered into force over the past four decades,” the spokesperson for Israel’s Economy Ministry said.

Israel has FTAs with the US, Canada, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and others.

Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, left, shakes hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the signing of a free trade agreement in the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, January 21, 2019. (Jim Hollander/Pool via AP)

Several free trade agreements were recently signed but now await ratification before entering into force, for instance with Colombia and Panama.

Last month, Israel signed another FTA with Ukraine, in the presence of the Eastern European country’s President Petro Poroshenko.

“We’ve worked on this for many years. The bureaucracies have had all the opportunities to prevent this from happening. We overcame it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the signing ceremony in Jerusalem, noting that the treaty was 1,500 pages long.

The Economy Ministry’s Foreign Trade Administration, in cooperation with officials from other ministries, is currently also negotiating new FTAs with China and Vietnam.