Thomas Friedman on the disingenuousness of Ilhan Omar

73 thoughts on “Thomas Friedman on the disingenuousness of Ilhan Omar”

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2. The last sentence of the first paragraph should begin “Is it”. Apologies for being picky, unfortunately being a proofreader never stops.

3. Regarding those that are currently calling Omar an anti-semite based only upon her recent limited statements, I believe they’re overreaching and overreacting. I’m truly disappointed with Democrat party leadership and colleagues ganging up on her. I’ll never vote in 2020 for Donald Trump, but I hope that I don’t have to even consider voting for a Democrat presidential candidate who doesn’t step up now and tell folks to get a grip. So far those that have stepped up: Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris

   1. The statements are not “limited”, and they are all of a piece with her now deleted tweets about how Israel “hyponotizes the world.” Believe me, if someone made similar statements about Hispanics (“they have a dual loyalty towards the U.S. and Mexico”), you and everyone else would be all over that like white on rice.

      Anti-semitism is spreading in the West and it’s people like Omar and her defenders who are normalizing it. Why don’t YOU get a grip and recognize what people like Omar and Linda Sarsour are trying to do?

      1. Or Muslims for that matter, I’ve seen a lot of technothriller type novels dating from around the late 1990s/early 2000s where it is stated/implied that a Muslim’s loyalty is to their religion first, whatever country they happen to have been born in second. Of course this kind of thing ‘spikes’ after 2001 for obvious reasons.

   2. IMO this resolution is very much like when Pelosi made a public statement dissing AOC’s Green New Deal (to whit: “…The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”)

      That comment, and this resolution, are both (not-so) subtle messages to freshman congresscritters to stop getting way out ahead of leadership on serious policy issues that could cost the Dems political credibility in the short term, and the 2020 election in the long term. And I expect that, like AOC, Ilhan Omar will choose not to take the hint.

      That’s her right, of course – she’s supposed to represent her District’s constituents, not ‘the Democratic Party line.’ But when you say you’re disappointed that they’re ganging up on her and you want to see Democrats get a grip, you have to realize that this resolution IS them trying to get a grip – on these newly elected young members who might have policy things to say, but who probably suck at the politics needed to convert a House majority into a 2020 sweep.

   3. Look at what the antisemitism scandal has done to Britain’s Labour Party and then tell me it’s the leadership trying to rein in people like Omar who need to “get a grip.”

      1. The leadership of the British Labour Party is the target for some of the accusations. They could hardly avoid tying themselves up in knots.

4. Helen Pluckrose tweeted something today about not ascribing other ideas to people just because they hold a certain opinion on a certain topic. While generally true, I think it breaks down in the case of these shifty grifters for Islamism, like Omar.

   We have seen too many examples in recent years of the socially-liberal contorting themselves to disbelieve the plain words that these Islamo-fascists are telling us. To me it’s a sort of post-Freudian incredulity that people believe things that they say they believe for the reasons they give: there must be some other explanation, they think, when no other one is necessary.

   The good news is that this strain of anti-Semitism which derives from Islamism is likely to be much less pervasive in the US than in the UK. US Muslims are socially more liberal, a smaller percentage of the population and likely to be less influential as long as the socially liberal are not afraid to risk calls of racism in exposing them.

   Given Kamala Harris’ refusal even to establish eye-contact with Ayaan at the Senate hearing recently, that does not bode well. Still, after years of plugging away at Corbyn’s anti-Semitism, the facts seem to have reached critical mass. It feels like the beginning of the end for the Corbster. Someone, somewhere, called Omar the Corbynization of the US Dems: persevere, and one hopes we’ll see the back of such dreadful people soon.

   1. While generally true, I think it breaks down in the case of these shifty grifters for Islamism, like Omar.

      IMO I don’t think it’s really necessary to pick the label, when the substance is enough. As JAC points out, Ilhan Omar believes in a single-state solution where that state is not Israel. A person can call that whatever they like – anti-Zionist or anti-Semite or pro-Palestine – it doesn’t change my opinion of that position as being (a) ill considered, (b) callous and (c) bordering on accepting a future genocide of Jews.

      Likewise, I don’t really care what label one chooses to put on the belief that support for Israel among Americans is due to secret bribes from a conspiracy of Jews. It’s a disgusting as well as patently and laughably wrong belief whatever label you put on it, and a person who holds such a belief is either incredibly ignorant/naive, or incredibly biased (…or both).

      Labels are proxies for belief content, and here, it’s the belief content which is IMO odious – regardless of what label one puts on it.

      1. I think the point is, Eric, what else Omar is likely to think. What is the general MO of these characters?

         The first is dishonesty in the public sphere, the euphemizing of their own opinions & motivations, in order to fool the left-wing audience. The second is a promiscuous appeal to both wings of the western left-right ideological divide, since from their point of view – and in a certain sense they are correct – their faith transcends that structure. From this flows a tension with their temporary political allies: such as we see in Birmingham now with the ignorant mob of Muslim parents, who have probably never heard of a Scheme of Work, baying at a gay teacher. This is in flat contradiction to the cynical alliance of wound-collectors, the Muslim/LGBT movement, whose centre cannot hold, as long as the crypto-Islamists are in it.

         What else is Omar likely to promote? The reasonableness of sharia, creationism, the subordinate position of science to religion, the structural inequality of men and women, defence of the terrorism tactic, faith-based exceptions to free speech, the presentation of misleading data in the public sphere. And all the while we will have journalists who call themselves such, yet who are actually mouth-pieces of the left parties (think Owen Jones), providing cover for them, as one sees in the gag-inducing love-in between him and Mehdi Hasan.

         This will further the wearisome rite every few months of liberal opinion barking at some crypto-Islamist to apologize for uttering the ideas they essentially hold: or politely, in that New England way, observing that this is a learning experience, opportunities for growth, blah-blah. As if there is one part of the civilized globe which does not know that anti-Semitism leads to bad outcomes.

         The UK Labour Party is different to the Democrats. The latter has a history tarnished with its disgraceful rôle in the Civil War, from which it has spent decades recovering. The LP had no such stain. Corbyn and his acolytes have sullied the banner of the LP such that this lifelong Labour voter will never vote for a Corbynized LP until the stables have been cleaned. Polls suggest tentatively that JC’s anti-Semitism loses the LP about 5% of its vote.

         Yet, I would not go so far as to claim that the LP is institutionally anti-Semitic. The long-term structures of the LP are not set up to perform anti-Semitic acts, nor is the arc of its policies bending inevitably in that direction. What we have is an anti-Semitic cabal in the leadership and a significant middle level supporting them. It may take a generation to get rid of them. That is what the Democrats face unless some of them seize the day and clamp down straight away: they should not dilly-dally like the anti-anti-Semites in the LP did for years.

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6. The key pivot point here is that she claims to not be anti-semitic while criticizing Israel. This is her claim; an the lefty Dems you mention are supporting this.

   This is flag waving for the Palestinian cause.

   Omar did not support the BDS movement before she was elected; but then came out in favor within a week of being elected; before taking office. This is disingenuous. I thin she will suffer in the polls for that move. There is a fairly substantial Jewish population in Minneapolis (more in St. Paul, I think; but I don;t know for sure).

   This morning on our local NPR station (KNOW) came on with a story, more or less headlined, “Many Minnesota Jews Don’t Think Omar Is Anti-Semitic”

   https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/03/07/local-jewish-group-representative-reacts-to-rep-omars-comments

   — including Amber Harris, who represents the Twin Cities chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace

   Amber Harris has a Palestinian husband and a son born in Palestine. Perhaps there is an axe to grind there.

   1. The key pivot point here is that she claims to not be anti-semitic while criticizing Israel.

      I don’t think those two statements are necessarily mutually exclusive. Israel is a nation state with a democratically elected government. If that government does bad things, it’s right to be critical of it and by extension to the people that elected it for appointing a bad government.

      However, calling Israel an apartheid state: well I was originally going to make an argument that it is not anti-semitic, just a falsehood and malicious defamation of Israel. However, in the course of writing this answer, I have changed my mind. When people say “Israel is an apartheid state” they mean that the Jews use the law of Israel to oppress the Palestinians. This is a lie and a defamation against the Jews living in Israel. It is clearly anti-Semitic.

      Similarly advocating for the dissolution of Israel is advocating for the genocide of all the Jews living there. I don’t think many of the advocates of a one state solution actually want all the Jews in the Middle East to be slaughtered, I think they probably do believe a state can be set up in which everybody can live together in harmony. I think that is somewhat naive.

      1. Just to clarify: the one state solution is anti-semitic. I didn’t mean to excuse the anti-semitism of the people who advocate it. I was just theorising about how they arrived at an anti-semitic position through naivety.

7. … where were these people when it came time to defend Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a black ex-Muslim women? It it the Islam bit that we’re supposed to admire?

   Yes! Muslims are of course marginalised and oppressed, and therefore always in the right.

   But by becoming an *ex*-Muslims, Ayaan transitioned to being a colonialist oppressor, and so is always in the wrong.

8. I believe Pelosi had to step in and dilute this democratic spat to keep others from eating their young, so to speak. The final resolution to come out will mention everything under the sun and everyone is to shut up and move on. I suspect this new first termer is being told to adjust her tweets and her mouth which might be like asking Trump the same thing.

9. I tend to agree with Jerry about the specific anti-Semites he takes to task, and I don’t claim to understand the complicated implications of Zionism, either historically or politically, as well as our host. But I have some trouble buying the proposition that anti-Zionism equates with anti-Semitism across the board.

   Certainly, some anti-Zionists are anti-Semites (David Duke and the Ku Klux Clan come to mind), and conspiracy theories about the State of Israel abound. But many groups opposed Zionism in 1948 for political and religious reasons that, wrongheaded or not, cannot justifiably be called anti-Semitic, and the same would seem to apply to some modern opposition among, say, Reformed and secular Jews. To equate the two strikes me as an attempt to shut down reasonable debate of the question, essentially slapping an invidious label on anyone who disagrees. This seems to me an undesirable stance to take on just about any issue.

   1. I was talking about anti-Zionists now, not in the past, if that’s what you mean by “across the board.” And I don’t want to shut down debate; I just claim that underlying any claim of anti-Zionism is an animus against Jews. I would call a Holocaust denier someone that was pro-Nazi, but, as I’ve said repeatedly, I welcome debate on the reality of the Holocaust. I don’t use labels to stifle debate; I am using them to dispel disingenuous claims.

   2. “The Jewish state actually exists. Opposing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is to oppose the continuing existence of actually existing Jewish state. […] On a moral level, opposing Zionism in 1947 is radically different than opposing it in 1948.”
      This is a quotation from https://ukmediawatch.org/2019/03/07/debunking-the-guardian-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-not-antisemitic/

      1. “The Jewish state actually exists. . . . On a moral level, opposing Zionism in 1947 is radically different than opposing it in 1948.”

         Interesting, and thanks for the reference to the Adam Levick article.

         Still, there’s something about his point that doesn’t sit well with me. One might as easily say that, on a moral level, opposing the Japanese internment camps in 1943 was radically different from opposing them in 1942 because by 1943 the internment camps had become an existing reality rather than a theoretical proposition. Is Levick seriously contending that the existence of something ipso facto constitutes a moral justification for such existence?

         1. I think he’s saying that the consequences for the people most affected by the dissolution of an entity are more important than theoretical considerations about an entity that doesn’t exist yet. Japanese in internment camps presumably would have been happy about the elimination of those camps, whereas Jews in Israel presumably would be harmed by the elimination of Israel.

         2. The difference is striking. The result of opposig the existence of internments camps for Japanese would be freeing of people of Japanese descent from the camps. The result of opposing the existence of a state with almost nine million inhabitants would result in murder or exile of over six millions of it’s Jewish inhabitants and a good percentage of its Arab inhabitants who would be deemed “collaborators”.

            1. No argument on that point and, again, I make no claim about being an expert on Zionism. I was taking issue specifically with Levick’s 1947 vs 1948 statement, as if people who had viable reasons for opposing Zionism in 1947 were somehow magically transformed into morally reprehensible human beings in 1948. That he could make such a statement makes me question the quality of his thinking. That’s all, and thanks for replying.

            2. Whatever reasons people had 1947 to be against the creation of a Jewish state could no longer be valid after the creation of the Jewish state, the genocidal attac on this newly created state by 5 Arab countries and the Jewish victory. After this victory, when the state already existed, arguments that it should not exist were practically calling for new genocide or new exile.

10. I wonder if part of the issue is generational. Stuff that was common knowledge in one era (e. g. “X is a common anti-Semitic trope”, or “Y sounds like it comes from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”) is just not widely known or commonly recognized anymore.

    1. Maybe but this Omar knows very well what she is doing and the game she is playing. Bells go off all over the congress when someone makes statements such as she did when she is a congresswoman. And there is also the politics because the Republicans love to see this in the other party – this division. Meanwhile Bernie Sanders jumps up and defends her comments and says others are interfering with debate. That is crap because it’s not debate it is making anti-Israel comment. To question the loyalty of a lobby group is a bridge too far.

    2. Omar does not represent a new generation of Americans. She represents Somali-Americans who have immigrated to enjoy the American living standard while retaining their old views and forcing them onto their hosts whenever possible.

       Of course, the issue is even more complicated because, unlike Tlaib who is of Palestinian origin, Omar and her people have no axe to grind concerning Israel. Nevertheless, most of them hate Israel and the Jews and, as we see, try to normalize their hate, with some success.

       Whenever I warn Americans about large-scale immigration from incompatible cultures, someone objects that America has a history of assimilating immigrants and making them productive new citizens. However, America has never had so low birth rates of established citizens, nor so much doubt in its culture, resulting in lack of pressure on newcomers to assimilate. Kids are taught that Western culture is not better than any other, actually worse than others, if not the root of all evil in the world. I think that in such an environment, the melting pot will no longer work. Or if it works, it will be in the opposite direction, i.e. established Americans melting into the proud Third World immigrant culture. As we see with Omar.

       I find it teltale that after Omar was elected, not only did she come out about her support for BDS, but she replaced her hitherto pretty colorful headscarves wish shapeless mud-colored ones.

       1. In the last sentence, “with”.

          1. Well said.

       2. Actually the US’ population (in terms of # of first-gen immigrants vs. native-born citizens) is about the same today as it was from 1860-1920 and [looks around] hey, that didn’t collapse our society, did it?

          Granted, anti-immigrant sentiment was pretty high during some of that time, just like it is today. So the ratio was noticeable and upsetting to many nth-gen Americans, even if the ‘threat’ of having so many unassimilated foreign-born-and-cultured people living here turned out to be a nothnigburger in the long run.

          The reason why the nativists were wrong then, and you are wrong now, is because you/they are skeptical of the notion that second-gen immigrants (i.e, these folks’ kids) will be somewhat more assimilated, and 3rd gen even more so, and so on. But AIUI, by empirical measures such as class, job choice, first language used in home, etc., that’s exactly what happens.

          We’ve seen this movie before. We know how it ends. And it doesn’t end with Hispanic Catholic or mideast Muslim immigrants destroying America as we know it any more than it ended with Irish Catholic immigrants or Chinese Buddhist immigrants destroying America as we know it in the late 1800s.

          1. I am not sure that it is ethical to disregard the influence of massive immigration on the existing population in the short run, which may last the entire productive life of a generation. Well, let’s talk about the long-term effects only. There are now some territories in the USA that are bilingual (English + Spanish) and become only wider and more Spanish-speaking with time. This – as far as I know – has never been observed in earlier immigration, except the initial settlement period when English and French were establishing separate colonies. Also, as far as I know, there has never before been a case in which a 1st generation immigrant, heavily supported by one of the two major parties, has managed to overthrow a 200-yr-old rule in Congress. Which, to me, means that conditions have changed. One of the changes I see is that, as I mentioned before, immigrants are no longer pressured to assimilate. Another change is that today’s immigrants include groups that have been avoided before, notably Muslims, many of whom reject core values of the host society.

             As for 2nd generation Muslim immigrants, European experience shows that they are, on average, less integrated than their parents. To me, the opinion of many Americans that they can do exactly the same as Europeans yet avoid the same fate is over-confident. I hope that time will prove me wrong.

    3. Blueollie, Omar didn’t need to go to the common western anti-Semitic tropes to get her ideas on dual loyalty. It is historically a common idea in the Islamic Empires. The complaints about Maimonides being Saladin’s personal physician are examples, as are the passim Turkic instances of envy at the high positions of Jews in the Ottoman Empire. She comes from a culturally Islamic background after all.

11. Representative Omar’s district includes St. Louis Park.

    Tom Friedman graduated from St. Louis Park HS. He once wrote a lovely essay about his revered high school English teacher who was known for her high standards. And Al Franken spent some of his growing up years in SLP although he graduated from a private school (Blake).

    1. Yes, if you read Friedman’s essay, he notes that he feels a kinship with Omar because they are from the same place. I think he mentions Franken as well.

12. Never been a great fan of T. Friedman’s murky prose and tepid opinions myself, but this one’s a pretty reasonable, well-balanced piece.

    1. Friedman was always famous for finding cab drivers and street corner hot dog vendors who advanced the same argument he was making.

13. Respectfully, Jerry, I strongly disagree with your “touchstones of anti-Semitism.” Members of my family are active in Jewish Voice for Peace. They support BDS and probably some sort of Palestinian right of return. They and their fellow JVP members may well be wrong, but to call them anti-Semites is both unfair and absurd. They are simply Jews who really dislike what Israel has become.

    1. Voice for Peace? I’ll go with that.

    2. I find any Jew who supports JVP and BDS to be really puzzling. The founders of BDS have repeatedly stated that “Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are incompatible with the existence of the state of Israel.”, in those words and others. ADL has some choice words for JVP.
       I have to assume that they have not spent much time in Israel, and that their radical left politics overshadow any Jewish identity they have. Would that be accurate?

       Do you know how Palestinian Arabs think of Jews that support BDS and other Palestinian causes? They think of them as Dirty Jews, and just as much candidates for beheading as an Orthodox Rabbi praying at the Western Wall.

       1. They’ve been fed all the lies I was fed in college. I believed all my professors when they told us literal conspiracy theories about Israel in class as if they were fact. I was completely against Israel and wondered why people who heard me repeat these conspiracy theories and lies and my resulting opinion on Israel a “self-hating Jew.” Every group on campus spread the same propaganda (I went to a very “progressive” college). This was back in the very early 2000’s. Things have gotten FAR worse since then.

          It’s hard to think for oneself, especially when people who you respect and expect to tell you the truth are feeding you lies. I was literally brainwashed by professors and campus groups they and the college administration supported who told me that the Israeli military/government targets Palestinian children and pregnant women to reduce their population; that they torture and kill Palestinian kids; that they intentionally poison Palestinian water; and on and on.

          1. I was pretty firmly on the side of the Palestinians, right up until my first week working in Israel.
             Coincidentally, I picked up my views at university as well. Mine was not a particularly liberal one, but there was a Palestinian student presence, and they practiced disinformation. I bought it, and I like to think I am a pretty rational person.

             I also spent time working in Somalia. I remember thinking in 1992 or 1993 that “if these people ever come to the US in significant numbers, we are screwed”.

             Well, here we are.

             1. Not just the US. Screwed in many other countries too.

       2. I am not particularly well informed about JVP. But I do know enough about it to know that its membership isn’t even predominantly Jewish.

          Again, criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. But Omar, JVP, and the rest aren’t *just* criticizing Israel.

          1. Exactly. I criticize Israel all the time. I criticize my own home country. I still want them both to exist, largely as they currently do.

             1. And like other commenters here have pointed out, she’s not offering any specific criticisms of Israel, Israeli policy, the US’s contribution to those, etc. It’s all conspiracy theory.

                Also, as I commented below, Israel is kind of an odd obsession for a Somali. You would think that she’d be more critical of her own religion and country.

    3. I also dislike what Somalia has become, but I do not call for its boycott, pariah status and eventual obliteration.
       If I did, I would be anti-Somali.

14. This exchange occurred on The View…listen to Meghan McCain….

15. This bothers me: Omar getting chummy with Linda Sarsour https://alphanewsmn.com/ilhan-omar-meets-with-anti-semite-linda-sarsour-first-day-of-congress/.

    1. Birds of a feather…

16. “…the “progressives” like Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with 2020 Presidential hopefuls like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are trying to water it down asking that all forms of bigotry be condemned.”

    Just like Jeremy Corbyn, over and over. It’s a way to simply avoid the issue and move to talking about something else.

    ” Yet merely by refusing to fold, Omar stands to shift the range of acceptable discussion — the so-called Overton window — sharply in her direction. Ideas once thought of as intellectually uncouth and morally repulsive have suddenly become merely controversial. It’s how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It’s why anti-Semitism is just outside the frame, bidding to get in.”

    And this is how antisemitism wiggled its way inside the Overton Window in Britain’s Labour Party, to the point where several MPs recently left the Party altogether over its refusal to sufficiently address the issue of antisemitism in its ranks, and the issue’s rise since Corbyn became leader. I fear the Democrats are headed in the same direction.

    1. The British Equality & Human Rights Commission has started an inquiry into the claims of antisemitism in the British Labor Party. No idea what the outcome is going to be, but one quote from a member of the British Labor Party is telling:

       “One member of Labour’s ruling NEC, Huda Elmi, who was elected by party members, called for the EHRC to be replaced, describing it as “a failed experiment”. She added: “We need to abolish it and bring back separate, well-resourced governmental bodies for each equality strand!””

       https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/07/labour-antisemitism-equalities-watchdog-opens-investigation

       1. Big shocker that she wants to go back to the process that already didn’t work, that the Labour party got to do on its own, and that conveniently doesn’t focus on its antisemitism problem.

17. What to make of the fact that the President of Israel (among other prominent people) supports a one-state solution?

    (that’s not snarkiness – I’m just not convinced a one-state solution isn’t a real option, especially in the long run as tensions are reduced. I’m far from expert – this is based on random readings such as “Endgame. Noam Sheizaf Haaretz 2010” which discusses the more right-wing one-state view, plus other more academic discussions of one-state possibility).

    1. There are many different proposed one-state solutions. In some, Judea and Samaria would be annexed, the Palestinian Authority outlawed, Arabs would be required to swear allegiance to Israel, and Israel would be responsible for the well-being of all inside its borders.

       Many believe that most Arabs would welcome this as they supposedly are not happy at all with the PA.

       Jews would still be in the majority in this scenario, as I do not believe the so-called “right-of-return” of Arabs to Israel would be countenanced at all.

    2. I don’t think the right-wing one-state plan envisages Palestinians having equal voting rights. That would be demographic suicide. Rather it envisages Israel annexing and governing the West Bank on the grounds that the Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves. There is virtually no support for this in Israel and Netanyahu, despite playing coy, doesn’t support it either. It would validate the apartheid claim.

       1. Sorry, Netanyahu is PM of Israel. I don’t know the stance of the Israeli President. In fact, I don’t even know who the hell he is.

          1. He is Rueven Rivlin and apparently supports full citizenship for Palestinians. Don’t see how that could work. I retract my comment.

18. If Ilhan Omar criticized a specific aspect of Israeli policy, or Netanyahu, who is corrupt, no one would call her anti-Semtic. However, I never hear her criticize policy of Israel, but rather she criticizes Americans who support Israel as having been hypnotized and paid off by a “political force” that is more loyal to Israel than the US. If you add up all her tweets and statements, you get a wickedly anti-Semitic caricature

    1. She is demonizing supporters of Israel, presumably hoping to scare them into stopping their support.

19. On a minor tangent; a writer for the Independent thinks that Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses should be banned under Britain’s hate speech laws.
    https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/satanic-verses-salman-rushdie-review-fatwa-muslim-iran-heresy-a8799771.html

    1. The “Independent “ says it all!
       Most readers of the independent have never read the “Satanic Verses”
       I read it a long time ago and still don’t understand what the fuss was about.

20. Yuck. Omar is frightening. I’m pretty sure she’ll be put in her place, as it were, but what a nut case!

21. I wish everyone could see that fundraising email from AOC. Disgusting.

22. We can undoubtedly count on the Congressional Democrats to come up with a bold, hard-hitting statement denouncing not only antisemitism, but also antibiotics, antihistamine, antidiuresis, antimony, Islamophobia, Farrakhanophobia, antisemitismophobia, and unkind words about freshman Congressional Democrats.

    1. We maybe should all be Islamophobic, it’s a fearful religion.

    2. 🙂

23. PCC(E), the last paragraph before the break and the * is your take, right?

    -Ryan

24. Slightly off topic:

    I saw something about a Dem Congressman commenting about the recentness of Omar’s refugee experience, and how it is much more recent than the Japanese internment camps, etc. Which is, obviously, not relevant to whether or not she’s a bigot herself.

    But then again, it sort of highlights what to me is the bigger head-scratcher here. Considering Omar’s background, why the focus on Jews and Israel? It’s not like either had a hand in her refugee experience. Members of her religion, on the other hand, did.

    1. I think this is not off-topic at all.

25. I’m endlessly amused by comments about what Israel “has to” do or what “rights” the Palestinians have.

    Israel is a de facto and de jure sovereign nation with political and military supremacy over its territory. The fact that “Palestine” exists at all is due to Israeli largesse.

26. “So what’s the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism—a difference that defenders of Omar repeatedly insist on? There isn’t one: not if you take “anti-Zionism” to mean “opposition to the existence of Israel as a state”. For such opposition, and calls for the elimination of Israel, simply mean that thousands of Jews will be massacred by Palestinians and other Arabs. Here are three views that I see as touchstones of anti-Semitism:

    Support of the BDS movement (see Friedman’s characterization of its aims below)
    Support of the “right of return” and a “one-state solution” to the Israel/Palestine problem, which is, as I said, a de facto call for killing Jews. (I favor a two-state solution, as I’ve said repeatedly.)
    Claims that Israel is an “apartheid state,” which is a palpably ridiculous and false claim meant to single out Israel among all trulyapartheid states (like the Palestinian Territories, for example).”

    Is there not something amiss with this argument? It has to do (I think) with terms too vague to be much good and definitions that are tendentious.

    “Anti-Zionism” may for some mean what you say. Some may indeed take it to mean the killing of thousands of Israeli Jews (indeed, may think it “a price worth paying”, to appropriate Madeleine Albright’s response to the deliberate killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children). Some may think the state of Israel ought not to have been brought into being. Some may think it ought not to exist now. But the term “anti-Zionist” is applied also, and these days mainly, to those who criticise the state of Israel for how it treats its Palestinian inhabitants and the Palestinians under its control, for its way with negotiations with the Palestinians (which has been characterised as continuing to eat the pizza while insisting that you are negotiating, in good faith, how to divide it up – aka the Oslo Agreement), and for its way of “defending” itself – in the words of its own political and military leaders, “mowing the lawn”, “bombing people back to the stone age” (or the Dahiya Doctrine), “putting them on a diet” etc. etc. (as an empirical matter, in the public sphere, those who take exception to Israel’s military actions tend to be those who also criticise the US for the much greater carnage it commits and coordinates – Israel is not singled out). Such “anti-Zionists” do not “oppose the existence of Israel as a state”. They certainly do not countenance the killing of thousands of Israeli Jews. They call for the claims of Palestinians to be given as much weight as the claims of Israeli Jews. And they call for Israel to observe the dictates of international law (as an empirical matter, they tend to be those who also call for the US, UK etc. to do likewise – Israel is not singled out). You may reasonably disagree with them on each and every one of their contentions, but what they say is worth engaging with by anyone interested in peace. That Jews can be anti-Zionist, and indeed reverend Orthodox Rabbis, ought to be sufficient to indicate something amiss with your argument. The anti-Zionism currently under fire has nothing to do with anti-semitism. It is advocacy of equality of treatment for all citizens of Israel, and the withdrawal of Israel from the territories conquered in 1967, leaving it in possession of the territories acquired in 1948. It also includes a variety of proposals on possible compromise on the right of return (some of the biggest concessions coming from Palestinians themselves rather than “anti-Zionists”). And the talk of “one state” you deplore is now to the fore as much as anything because Israel by its actions has confirmed that it thinks two states impossible (it has done what it can to make it so), and certainly undesirable. “One state” is also much in favour with the “right” in Israel.

    “Apartheid” is another vague term best confined, I agree, to its original application. South Africa attempted to keep blacks in Bantustans and townships, but needed their labour. Israel wants to keep most Palestinians in bits of the West Bank and Gaza (or preferably elsewhere). It does not need their labour. It has from the outset discriminated against its Palestinian inhabitants, in myriad ways. This is fact, easy to ascertain.

    You appear to imply in passing that it is established fact (pace several independent investigations) that the British Labour Party has a problem of what its critics call “institutional anti-semitism”. (Indeed, I’ve just noticed with regret that you approve of Nick Cohen’s commentary on this. Let us just say that this is not advisable for anyone trying to see beyond partisan prejudice.) The Labour Party’s “institutional anti-semitism” is a good example of the use of the term by those who support Israel. The charge has been made only since Jeremy Corbyn became its leader. Mr. Corbyn is an anti-Zionist only in that he advocates compliance with the UN resolutions of the last fifty years – compliance with which would bring about a two-state solution. This (I think) is not sufficient to justify the vilification. Again, these are questions it is reasonable to disagree about.) The vilification persists in the absence of evidence because it has proved so useful to so many who oppose Mr. Corbyn. The State of Israel naturally has no wish to see a British PM sympathetic to Palestinians. As a former Israeli minister has explained, Israel’s weapon of choice is the charge of anti-semitism – it is extremely effective, he says, against Europeans. Representatives of the State of Israel have more than once been filmed and recorded coordinating and financing its various lobby groups in the UK and specifically in the Labour Party. The British Establishment has no wish for a PM who questions its geopolitical principles and preferences. It is more than willing to add anti-semitism to the many smears it has employed. The corporate and financial community, which controls the bulk of our media, has no wish for a PM who might succeed against the odds in curbing its profits by trying to reintroduce social democracy. It is more than willing to broadcast the false narrative ad nauseam. Repeat a lie often enough and enough people will believe it. In the Labour Party, the heirs of Mr. Blair and “New Labour” (close to Israel since forever) are willing to destroy the party rather than cede control. For all of these, the big lie of “institutional anti-semitism” has worked a treat. They will continue to use it until the risk of social democracy has passed (likewise any succour for the Palestinians from the UK – or any other Western state, like the US, or France, or…).

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