That Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has made another statement peddling an anti-Semitic trope on Twitter wasn’t particularly surprising. Her anti-Semitism has been obvious to any honest observer ever since she became a public figure. The only remaining question is: Do Democrats care?
To recap, on Sunday night, the freshman Democrat, who was given a slot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reacted to a story about Republican House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s plan to “take action” against the anti-Semitism being exhibited on a regular basis by Omar and her ” sister” freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” she wrote, using a song reference and slang term for $100 bills to attack Jewish influence in politics.
She then followed it up with another tweet saying she meant, ” AIPAC,” a reference to the pro-Israel lobbying group.
The idea of Jews using money and power to advance foreign interests and exert a nefarious influence on policy is an age old anti-Semitic smear. It also isn’t true, by the way, that Omar was referring merely to AIPAC. She later retweeted former Harry Reid deputy chief of staff attacking the influence of Sheldon Adelson — the linked article doesn’t mention AIPAC at all. So it’s clear that her attack is on Jewish money and influence.
It’s also one that Omar has advanced in some form or another for years. For instance, she previously infamously tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She later feigned ignorance of how anybody could have been offended, but obviously didn’t learn anything from the gullible Jewish liberals who earnestly tried to explain to her the implications of what she said.
It’s not worth litigating why her latest statement is anti-Semitic in excruciating detail. It is, however, worth stating a few things for the record. To start, the “PAC” in AIPAC does not stand for “Political Action Committee” but for “Public Affairs Committee.” That is, AIPAC does not donate money to candidates, it tries to lobby members of Congress in both parties to make sure support for Israel is bipartisan. Furthermore, Republicans don’t need AIPAC to convince them to be pro-Israel. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve had plenty of Republican lawmakers and staffers confide in me over the years that they’re increasingly frustrated with AIPAC for working to water-down various letters in support of Israel to get Democrats on board and thus preserve the idea that support for Israel is bipartisan, even though a Republican-only letter in a given instance could have been much more supportive of Israel. The truth is that Republicans are pro-Israel because their voters overwhelmingly are — all you need to do is look at polling data (shown below), or go to conservative conferences at which statements of support for Israel often get the most resounding applause.
Also, there’s nothing wrong with any group engaging in the democratic process to influence policy. And it isn’t even as if AIPAC is particularly influential or all powerful. Former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal went against everything AIPAC had been advocating for years, Israel was loudly opposed to it, and he pushed it through anyway and earned the support of critical mass of Democrats in Congress.
This really isn’t about Omar, however. She’s one member of Congress from a district that sent anti-Semite Keith Ellison to the House for 12 years. None of her anti-Semitic statements will cause her problems back home. Instead, with the help of the media, her statements will get spun as mere criticism of Israel, and her status as a brave truth-teller on the Left will only grow.
What’s more interesting is what this says about the Democratic Party. For years, I’ve been warning about how liberals were normalizing anti-Semitism by broadening the type of discourse that gets excused away as mere criticism of Israel. Obama’s Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel had decried the influence of the “Jewish Lobby” in Congress. In selling the Iran deal, Obama suggested that those opposing the deal were being influenced by donors, and that they weren’t thinking about what was in the best interests of the U.S. Liberal websites accused Sen. Chuck Schumer of dual loyalty for his criticism of the Iran deal. All that’s happening with Omar and Tlaib is they’re just being a bit more explicit.
So the question is, when do Democrats draw a line in the sand, if ever? The reluctance to say anything up until this point reflects an understanding of an ugly truth: that these views are representative of where a lot of their party is, and at a time when they’re trying to present a unified front, they want to avoid an all out war on a tense issue.
The data from Pew Research Center points to a widening gap between Republicans and Democrats, and particularly conservatives and liberals, when it comes to Israel. Though the parties were once relatively just as likely as Republicans to say they sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians, the gap has dramatically widened over time, with 79 percent of Republicans now saying they sympathize more with Israel, compared with just 27 percent of Democrats (who are now nearly as likely to say they sympathize more with Palestinians). But the ideological breakdown is even more stark. Conservatives back Israel by an 81 percent to 5 percent margin, while liberals actually favor Palestinians by nearly two-to-one. Political parties like to talk about issues that united their party, but Israel is an issue that objectively divides the Democrats, as conservative/moderate Democrats are the polar opposite — favoring Israel two-to-one.
So Omar and Tlaib really present a test to Democrats about which type of party they want to be. The British Labour party has already been taken over by anti-Semitic leader Jeremy Corbyn, and there’s no reason why the same thing couldn’t happen in the U.S. Rising star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, just this month touted what an “honor” it was to have ” such a lovely and far-reaching” conversation with him.
Just last week, pushing back against those calling out her anti-Semitism, Omar said, “Our domestic policy values need to be aligned with our foreign policy values. No exceptions!” The clear suggestion is that if you want to be on board with the resurgent liberal agenda, it isn’t enough to back sweeping economic and social policies at home, you have to adopt her hostility toward Israel.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer may not share Omar’s foreign policy vision, but if they don’t call out anti-Semitism within their own ranks, they will only signal to others that it’s perfectly acceptable as long as it’s spun as mere criticism of Israel.
(Disclosure: In 2008, the author took a trip to Israel funded by the AIPAC-linked American Israel Education Foundation.)
UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leaders are now demanding that Omar apologize, a positive development. Let’s see if this is a one off statement in response to the latest tweet, or a part of a new commitment to snuffing out anti-Semitism within their ranks. The underlying forces within the Democratic Party that produced this moment, as described above, aren’t going to be washed away with one statement.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/we-already-know-ilhan-omar-is-an-anti-semite-the-question-is-do-democrats-care
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