by Jonathan S. Tobin
The freshman Minnesota congresswoman claims Jews are repressing her. She is trying to shut down the criticism of her anti-Semitism and link the defense of Israel with Islamophobia.
Perhaps
you thought Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) had been so thoroughly
rebuked by the media and fellow Democrats for her anti-Semitic tweets
that her campaign against Israel and its supporters had been put on
hold. Maybe you also thought the opprobrium thrown in her direction had
both shamed her and caused her colleagues to shun her in the manner that
is usually dished out to people caught in open expressions of hate.
If so, you were wrong. Omar remains the
toast of liberal Washington these days as her prominent placement on the
cover of Rolling Stone magazine, alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and fellow newcomer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teasing an article
about "Women Shaping the Future" testifies. We don't know if she was as
thrilled by that honor as the lyrics of the classic rock song by Dr.
Hook & the Medicine Show would dictate. But it's a clear sign that
as far as the pop-culture cheerleaders of an increasingly influential
left-wing of the Democrats are concerned, not only is she forgiven for
her vicious "It's all about the Benjamins" smear of the pro-Israel community and AIPAC; it's not clear if too many of them were ever really all that angry about it.
Nor is Omar backing down even a little bit from a campaign of anti-Israel incitement.
She said some of the right things about the
awfulness of anti-Semitism after Pelosi and the Democratic leadership
warned that she had gone too far with her Jew-baiting. Liberals judged
her brief apology tour a rousing success. They were already desperate to
embrace the first Somali-American in Congress who broke new ground by
forcing the House to change its rules to allow her to wear a religious
head covering on the floor. They bought her claim to be unaware that the
assertion that Jews are buying Congress is a classic anti-Semitic
trope. Previously, she had claimed to be surprised when a 2012 tweet in
which she said Israel was "hypnotizing the world" to ignore the Jewish
state's "war crimes" was interpreted as reflecting classic anti-Semitic
tropes.
Omar is not only continuing her efforts to
undermine the alliance between Israel and the United States, but she's
also holding a grudge against Jews and other members of Congress who
called her out for anti-Semitism.
At a "Progressive Town Hall" held in
Washington this week, she claimed that she and fellow boycott,
divestment and sanctions supporter Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) – who
was also guilty of spewing anti-Semitism on Twitter when she accused
supporters of Israel of dual loyalty – are being targeted by their
"Jewish colleagues" because "we are Muslim."
According to Omar, she and Tlaib are not
only innocent of being hatemongers, despite their use of anti-Semitic
tropes, but they are also actually the victims of religious
discrimination by a powerful lobby. As far as Omar is concerned, far
from transgressing the norms of civil debate in a democracy, the same
lobby and its allies that only a few weeks ago she accused of being
fueled by "the Benjamins" are repressing her and Tlaib.
This is significant because, far from
learning her lesson and keeping her vow to listen to the Jewish
community, Omar has nothing but contempt for both the Jews and their
sensibilities. Nor is she the least bit daunted by the criticism she got
from mainstream Democrats, who were rightly concerned that Omar speaks
more for their party's base about Israel than they do.
Omar is actually offended by the fact that
"a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our
allies got to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be
anti-Semitic because we are Muslim. … It's almost as if everything we
say regardless of what it is we say … we get to be labeled something.
Because we end up defending that and nobody ever gets to have the
broader debate of what is happening with Palestine."
This is utterly disingenuous. She and Tlaib
have been labeled as anti-Semites because they promote anti-Semitism
and have embraced an anti-Semitic BDS policy that aims at eliminating
the one Jewish state on the planet.
Moreover, she gave the lie to her supposed
concern about offending Jews when she reportedly smiled when an audience
member at the town hall shouted her line about "the Benjamins." Even
worse than that, she tried out Tlaib's dual-loyalty meme when she added
later, "I want to talk about the political influence in this country
that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country."
Fellow Rolling Stone cover girl Pelosi has
been treating the "Benjamins" tweet as a momentary lapse. But Omar and
Tlaib have taken the measure of their party's leadership and decided
that they have nothing to fear if they continue with their effort to
delegitimize supporters of Israel. Their goal is not merely legitimizing
anti-Zionism and a BDS movement whose aim is Israel's destruction –
it's to shut down the criticism they've received for their anti-Semitism
and to falsely link the defense of Israel with anti-Muslim prejudice.
In a party where intersectional libels in
which every act of Israeli self-defense against terror is a war crime
and where self-determination for a Jewish majority is apartheid, Omar
and Tlaib have no need to fear Pelosi's wrath. To the contrary, the
speaker's desire to appease and reward them with choice committee
assignments even after the Republicans have finally gotten around to
sanctioning their own haters illustrates that Rolling Stone's prediction
the future of the Democrats may be prescient.
It's not too late for Jewish Democrats and
friends of Israel to refuse to take Omar's antics lying down. They need
to make as big a stink about her latest outrage as they did about her
previous one. And Pelosi needs to find the guts to punish Omar by taking
her committee assignments away. If she doesn't, Pelosi can forget about
deterring future anti-Semitic inroads in her caucus and the rest of the
Democratic Party.
This article is reprinted from JNS.org.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS – Jewish News Syndicate. Twitter @jonathans_tobin.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/are-jews-shutting-down-ilhan-omar/?redirected=346487
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