Photo: Democrat Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar
DO DEMS HATE HATE? NO
As Scott has
noted, the Democratic Party is tied up in knots over Ilhan Omar’s overt
anti-Semitism and reactions to it, both inside and outside the party. This is
not due to bungling on the part of the Democrats’ House leadership, as some
have suggested. Rather, the problem is inherent. It goes to the essence of
the modern Democratic Party.
It is fundamental to the Democrats’ worldview and reason
for being that all hate comes from the right. They constantly tout
themselves as the party of inclusion, tolerance and love. They never tire
of talking about, for example, Charlottesville, even though the violence
there was caused at least as much by the far-left Antifa as by a handful of
ragtag white supremacists. But of course, they never mention James
Hodgkinson.
More importantly, our politics today are suffused with
hate, to a degree not seen within my lifetime. Above all, hate for President
Trump. Also, hate for conservatives. Hate for Republicans. Hate for all those
who fail to toe the latest, ever-shifting intersectional line. Everyone who
pays attention to Twitter, to Facebook, to cable news, or to current events
generally knows this is true. And yet the Democrats cannot admit that they, and
the Left, are the overwhelming source of hatred in today’s world.
But Ilhan Omar posed a problem. Her hate was
different because it was directed toward a group that mostly supports Democrats.
Think about it: what she said about Jews was far milder than what Democrats say
about President Trump and his supporters every day. They constantly call Trump
a traitor. It was also milder than what many liberals say about white people on
MSNBC, without drawing a peep from the Democrats’ leadership. If Omar had
trained her fire on the right, or groups associated with the right, like whites
or rural Americans, no Democrat would have minded.
Ilhan Omar hates like a Democrat, and she
openly expresses that hate like a Democrat. The problem is that
she hates people who mostly support the Democratic Party. Not only that, by
openly expressing her bigotry she has exposed an important rift among the
Democrats. Like the Labour Party in Great Britain, the Democratic Party has
become a haven for anti-Semites. (Actually, it has been that for a long
time: see, for example, Crown Heights and “Hymietown.”) Today, the fact that
many Democrats don’t like Jews is becoming harder to conceal. Omar has made it
harder still.
I thought the House Democrats’ original resolution
condemning anti-Semitism, without naming Ilhan Omar, was anodyne. I thought she
probably could vote for it. But that resolution, which referred only to
anti-Semitism, was withdrawn by leadership, reportedly because of an outpouring
of support for Omar within the party. That support didn’t come from people who
doubted that she is an anti-Semite–she has made that blindingly clear,
repeatedly!–but rather from people who share her particular bigotry.
So the Democrats are in a tight spot. Leadership has had
to back off, and is in the process of substituting a resolution that toes the
party line by nattering on about Islamophobia and so on. A resolution that
refers to everything, and therefore nothing. A resolution that tries to
preserve the fig leaf of a party that is opposed to hate. Even as its
members express the vilest, most hateful, most bigoted views that America has
seen in its modern history.
___________________
RELATED ARTICLES
WILL PELOSI REMOVE OMAR FROM HOUSE FOREIGN
AFFAIRS, OR WILL SHE REMAIN SILENT?
By Qanta Ahmed | Author, Land of Invisible
Women
Photo: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
In the wake of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s open anti-Semitism,
American Jews — and particularly Jewish Democrats — have become
increasingly concerned about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s inaction. Even House
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, has
rightly expressed outrage.
Pelosi — who has now received a letter signed by nearly a dozen Jewish organizations
calling for Omar to be removed from her assignment on the House Foreign Affairs
Committee — finds herself at a crossroads. She can uphold the values that
decent people around the world hold by rejecting anti-Semitism, or she can
disregard Omar’s abusive speech, which is directed at one of the smallest and
most persecuted minority populations — American Jewry.
As a Muslim board member of the USC Shoah Foundation, I
am committed to combating anti-Semitism. As a practicing Muslim, I know Islam
reveres both Moses and the Torah. It mandates pluralistic belief — including
belief in Judaism — as a non-negotiable requisite for true belief in Islam.
Defeating radical Islamism — by which I mean a political, totalitarian ideology
— requires us to confront, not evade, anti-Semitism.
The shame Omar
brought upon America’s Muslims is clear. It’s now time for America’s Democrats
to examine their shameful Faustian bargain with identity politics, which has
led to their embrace of Islamism.
In America, “Islamism” has been accorded the rights — and
through those rights, the legitimacy — that a minority religion typically
(and rightly) enjoys, rather than the ruthless scrutiny to which most political
ideas are subjected.
As a result, any scrutiny of America’s Muslims — whether
ghettoized first-generation Muslims at risk of radicalization, or America’s
most powerful Muslim women in Congress — is immediately dismissed, rejected on
the basis of “Islamophobia.” This repels any legitimate examination of
political thought.
Worse, the critic is smeared as a xenophobic McCarthyite,
even when she is Muslim herself.
Omar, in keeping with the progressive left’s enamorment
with victimhood, has capitalized on this to good effect, though she has not
been called to task for her anti-Semitism either by the public or by Congress.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo asserts that any
criticism of Omar is an act of Islamophobia. He is far from alone in his
outrage. He’s joined by prominent American intellectuals, including Naomi
Klein, Glenn
Greenwald and Peter
Beinart. The falsehood of the besieged Muslim in America fits with the
hunger for victimhood
ideology.
The shield of Islamophobia serves Omar well.
Unless Pelosi responds to legitimate concerns about
Omar’s coziness with anti-Semitism — which is repugnant — Omar will lead the
Democratic Party down a path that requires Democrats to espouse anti-Semitism,
demonize Israel, Israelis and Jews, including American Jews.
Unfortunately, there is a great deal of political capital
to be gained by both Islamists and Democrats in pedaling our false victimhood
as Muslims in America.
This may explain the silence both from Pelosi and 2020
Democratic (Jewish) hopeful Sen. Bernie
Sanders, who has expressed solidarity with Omar.
This silence and support has continued even at the cost
of Jewish support among both voters and donors, and in the face of rising
anti-Semitism.
Instead of examining ideas, we are instead silenced at
the indignant altar of identity.
Omar’s ideas — not her identity — demand the Democratic
party answer for its apparent embrace of anti-Semitism.
The rise of anti-Semitism (for
which Islamism has been an extremely potent vehicle) is partly explained by the
legitimacy accorded Islamism in the United States.
Unable to distinguish “Islamism” from Islam, American
politicians (including Democrats) and others too often grant Islamism the
status of a minority religion instead of exposing its true character as a
supremacist political totalitarianism masquerading as a religion.
So far, the masquerade has paid off. Women’s March leader
Linda Sarsour (who is stained with
anti-Semitic associations), Omar and her fellow Islamist intimate, Michigan
Rep. Rashida
Tlaib, have each ascended to the fore on the crest of progressive
left-wing identity politics by embracing the tale of Muslim victimhood.
Pelosi has a choice. She can call for Democrats to
divorce Islamism — which includes removing Omar both from the House Foreign
Affairs Committee and from Congress — or she can continue this unholy alliance
for the sake of a Faustian bargain of which even the devil would be proud.
Qanta A. Ahmed (@MissDiagnosis)
is a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations and a member of the Committee on Combating
Contemporary Anti-Semitism Through Testimony at the University of Southern
California Shoah Foundation.
____________________
Sarsour denounces 'typical white feminist'
Pelosi as speaker calls for condemnation of anti-Semitism
By Valerie Richardson | The Washington Times
Photo: Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour defends Rep. Ilhan Omar
Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour blasted House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi for pushing an anti-Semitism resolution, calling her a
“typical white feminist upholding the patriarchy.”
“Nancy is a typical white feminist upholding the
patriarchy doing the dirty work of powerful white men,” said Ms. Sarsour
Tuesday on Facebook.”God forbid the men are upset — no worries, Nancy to the
rescue to stroke their egos.”
The Palestinian-American activist also defended Rep.
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat, whose comments last week on pledging
“allegiance to a foreign country,” referring to Israel, were widely decried as
anti-Semitic.
The House Democratic leadership responded to the latest
uproar over Ms. Omar with a proposed resolution condemning anti-Semitism,
although the initial draft does not mention the first-term congresswoman by
name.
“You want a resolution? Condemn all forms of bigotry,”
said Ms. Sarsour. “All forms of bigotry are unacceptable. We won’t let them pin
us up against each other. We stand with Representative Ilhan Omar. Our top
priority is the safety of our sister and her family.”
A vote on the resolution, which has reportedly been
expanded to condemn all bigotry, is expected Thursday.
Ms. Sarsour and two of her co-chairs, Tamika D. Mallory
and Carmen Perez, have been accused themselves of anti-Semitism for their ties
to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, described by the Anti-Defamation
League as “America’s leading anti-Semite.”
Ms. Sarsour has also come under fire for her support of
convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who was deported in 2017 for lying
on her visa application about her criminal history. She served a 10-year prison
sentence for her role in the 1969 bombing at a Jerusalem supermarket that left
two Jewish students dead.
The Women’s March has repeatedly denied allegations of
anti-Semitism, and named three progressive Jewish women to its board in
January.
