One controversial Tweet!

Author’s note: This post has been updated from its original version to include a reference to Heller’s opponent in the 2011-2012 election cycle.

It wasn’t quite the Tweet heard ‘round the world, but it did get more than a little attention.

I’m talking about a quick message dashed off today, noting U.S. Sen. Dean Heller had introduced an amendment to a bill that would re-locate the U.S. embassy to Israel to Jerusalem from its current location in Tel Aviv. This came just a couple days after Heller attended the Republican Jewish Coalition’s spring meeting here in Las Vegas, where the issue was highlighted.

Many supporters of Israel want the embassy to be located in Jerusalem, which they regard as the true undivided capital of that nation. Re-location of the embassy was officially embraced in U.S. law in 1995, but the law allows waivers to keep the embassy in its current location, Tel Aviv. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have availed themselves of that waiver authority.

Now, notwithstanding the fact that Heller did attend the RJC meeting, and that Heller did file his amendment a couple days thereafter, the senator’s press secretary strongly objected to my implication that he did so as a result of being a guest of the RJC and Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas Sands CEO and Republican megadonor who hosts the spring meeting every year. So, allow me to add some context:

The fact is, Heller originally introduced what he’s called the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act of 2015 back in January. Not only that, but he’s introduced similar legislation before, first in September 2011 and also in March of 2013. Heller was first appointed to the Senate by Gov. Brian Sandoval in 2011, and won election to the seat in his own right in 2012. His opponent in that race was Rep. Shelley Berkley, a pro-Israel Democrat who’d been pushing the move-the-capital-to-Jerusalem issue her entire tenure in Congress, dating to June 1999.

So, this legislation is something Heller’s been pursuing, albeit unsuccessfully, for at least four years. (Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio brought the issue up as an amendment during a budget debate in March, where it passed the Senate on a voice vote.)

Now, not for nothing, but according to the OpenSecrets.org website, the No. 1 donor to Heller’s campaign 2011 through 2014 was none other than … wait for it, wait for it … Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands! (In fairness, the $48,750 attributable to Sands is less that 1 percent of Heller’s overall take during that period of $10.2 million.) Also, Heller (along with many others in the Nevada GOP) celebrated the results of the 2012 election at … The Venetian!

Well, there I go again. Look, for the record, I point these facts out only as interesting side notes. I’m sure they’re totally unrelated to Heller’s introduction of any legislation that may, or may not, be supported by Adelson.

In addition to Heller’s office, my Tweet brought an objection from Noah Silverman, the congressional affairs director of the RJC, who noted that re-locating the embassy is official U.S. law, and encouraged me not to become “…a Silver State Jim Clancy.”

(Clancy is the CNN International reporter who resigned after he suggested that the deadly terrorist attack on French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo was due at least in part to an alleged pro-Israel stance at the magazine.) Apparently, Silverman wasn’t aware that I’d condemned those attacks, along with the rest of the civilized world.

Nevertheless, I thanked him for his kind-if-unsolicited advice, and, in the spirit of one good turn deserves another, suggested that he take care not to become the RJC’s version of Al Sharpton. His reply revealed that his real beef was with the blog I’d written about the RJC’s meeting itself, which he described as “malodorous.”

Everyone’s a critic, I suppose. And while I’d like to be beloved by all readers, sometimes, that’s just not possible.