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Ilhan Omar's Election Shows Democrats Aren't Interested In Confronting Anti-Semitism
[The Federalist] Ilhan Omar, one of the first of two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, is a new kind of politician. She’s telegenic. Ideologically progressive. Widely celebrated by a media that’s obsessed with identity politics. She’s the kind of politician who can openly side with Hamas against Israel or spread "Protocols of Zion"-style conspiracies on Twitter, claiming that Jews possess the supernatural ability to hypnotize the world as they unfurl their "evil."It’s not surprising, then, that Omar also supports the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" movement (BDS). In a statement to the website Muslim Girl (later confirmed elsewhere), someone on Omar’s staff explains that, yes, "Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution." So, although Omar contends that BDS will be ineffective in getting the sides to "a lasting solution," she stills "believes in and supports" a movement that smears the Jewish state as a racist endeavor and aims to destroy it economically. It’s a mystery, is it not, why some Jews might find that positioning offensive? Omar has supported BDS for a while, even though she will now occasionally slip in some platitudes about the peace process. As Scott Johnson of Power Line (who’s been following this story from the beginning) points out, Omar misled Jewish voters in her district, obfuscating about her position and, as she still does, conflating her support for BDS with a bill that would have stopped continued taxpayer funding of the movement. No one is attempting to "criminalize" anti-Israel speech, although it’s heartening to see Omar is a free-speech absolutist. We’ll see if her position on the "criminalization" of speech will remain consistent moving forward, and not reserved for supporters of Hamas. As far as I know, not even former congressman Keith Ellison, who once accused the shifty Jews of running American foreign policy, openly supported the BDS movement. Not even J-Street, the progressive front for hard-left activists posing as Israel supporters, openly backed BDS. Nor does George Soros, although he has intermittently funded BDS groups in the past and has been active against the Jewish state for years. Posted by: Besoeker 2018-11-16 |
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