últimas notícias

At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, some conservative opponents adopted a slogan that on its face was fairly innocuous: All Lives Matter.

In a vacuum, the statement is obviously true, but it was designed to ignore and downplay the fact that it was black lives, not other people’s lives, that were being disproportionately ended in police confrontations under often dubious circumstances. Activists insisted on the phrase “Black Lives Matter” because Black Americans in particular felt disproportionately targeted by police violence and discrimination. The argument against the phrase “All Lives Matter” was not that it was untrue, but that it selfishly distracted from the specific group people under fire.

Half a decade later, Democrats have now embraced the “All Lives Matter” idea in their effort to sugarcoat the virulent anti-Semitism of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Omar’s list of greatest anti-Semitic hits prompted the cooler heads in the Democratic Party to demand that the House pass a resolution condemning her racism. But in the time since, a number of congressional Democrats, including presidential candidates, have gone soft on anti-Semitism, rushing to Omar’s defense. And as a result, the party has now reached an uneasy position of trying to dilute the resolution it already proposed.

The latest iteration begins with a condemnation of both anti-Semitism and “anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry.” The preamble name-drops an assortment of genuine horribles — the alt-Right marchers of Charlottesville, the Charleston church shooter, “anti-Muslim” bigotry, and mosque bombing — but in context, this does little but clutter the resolution sufficiently that one might not realize this is all about Omar’s anti-Semitism. She is the sole reason this resolution is being proposed and voted on in the first place, yet her anti-Semitism now appears to play a secondary role in it.

At least the resolution mentions the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter, and it still lists as a problem “accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel” than to the United States. It mentions “Israel” by name just once, rejecting “the perpetuation of anti-Semitic stereotypes … especially in the context of support for the United States-Israel alliance.”

Of the nine total points in the resolution, only three are solely about discrimination faced by Jews. As before, Omar is not mentioned by name.

No one is saying that Muslim lives don’t matter or that Islamophobia isn’t disgusting and intolerable. But this resolution was meant to rebuke a sitting member of the United States Congress and the Democratic caucus from invoking centuries-old anti-Semitic slurs and unabashedly attacking American supporters of Israel as traitors.

The solidarity shown by Jewish allies both in the Democratic Congress as well as powerful rebukes by progressives like Rahm Emanuel have been both heartening and courageous. But in the Democratic Party, the virulently anti-Semitic tail seems to wag the dog. This sham of a resolution proves it.