Ilhan Omar and the Weaponisation of Antisemitism
Joshua Leifer
It should not be difficult to recognize the meaningful distinction between Ilhan Omar’s recent comments and the kind of antisemitism surging on the right
Wed 6 Mar 2019 20.11 EST
Guardian
Ilhan Omar’s most recent comments have been stripped entirely of their context, their intentions twisted and reversed. During an event in Washington DC last week, she spoke sensitively about her commitment to human rights advocacy, her experiences of Islamophobia, and her compassion for her Jewish constituents. Then Omar said: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country ... I want to ask, why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil-fuel industries, or big pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobby that is influencing policy?”
It wasn’t long before Republicans and centrist Democrats pounced. The backlash has reached such a degree of absurdity that Omar’s own party plans to censure her for her remarks. This is something the Democrats did not do in response to baldly antisemitic statements by Republicans, nor even, as Jeffrey Isaac wisely points out, in the wake of the massacre in Pittsburgh last October – the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, incited by Donald Trump and his supporters’ xenophobic rhetoric.
To be sure, Omar’s comments were not perfect – few people are flawless during unscripted panels or debates. And given the unfair and disproportionate amount of scrutiny she faces, perhaps it would have been wiser to have avoided some of the terms she used – in particular, “allegiance to a foreign country”. But what she said was not antisemitic: on the contrary, the full text of Omar’s remarks shows that she was careful not to conflate the pro-Israel lobby (which is also comprised of non-Jewish evangelical Zionists) or the state of Israel with all Jews, nor did she employ the dual loyalty canard, which asserts that Jews are more loyal to each other (or Israel) than to the countries they live in.
In fact, Omar did not say anything that other critics have not said before: that the pro-Israel lobby enforces rigid support for the increasingly rightwing Israeli government’s policies, and that questioning US support for a government that commits human rights abuses – some of which, the UN recently warned, may be war crimes – should be acceptable if not encouraged. If she were not a black, hijab-wearing Muslim woman, the reaction to her words surely would have been different.
That this is the second round of such condemnation of Omar in the span of a month is sadly not surprising. Since the new cohort of progressive Democratic legislators was sworn in last January, Republicans have explicitly and unapologetically attempted to use accusations of antisemitism as a cudgel against the rising left and as a way to erode Jewish support for the Democrats.
Norm Coleman, a Republican operative and registered foreign agent of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, admitted as much to the New York Times this year when he said that the purpose of the anti-BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) bill passed by the Senate was to send the message that Jews will “be much more comfortable in the Republican party”. And, in a show of truly deep cynicism this past week, Republicans added language on antisemitism into a resolution to end US support for the war in Yemen with the expectation that Democrats would object; when the Democrats accepted it, the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, denied the bill a vote. “Right now,” tweeted Senator Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser Matt Duss, “there’s a resolution sitting the Senate that would end both the Yemen war *and* make clear Congress’s commitment to combating anti-Semitism. But McConnell won’t bring it up for a vote.”
The Republicans’ weaponization of antisemitism to stymie progressive policies is also meant to distract from the antisemitism rampant within Republicans’ own ranks. Just this week, the Ohio representative Jim Jordan, a Republican, tweeted an outrageously antisemitic statement at the New York Democratic representative Jerrold Nadler, which implied he was in the pay of the Jewish billionaire Tom Steyer, whose last name Jordan spelled with a dollar sign in place of an S.
Jordan’s tweet is not anomalous. During the 2018 midterm elections, a number of Republican candidates made blatantly antisemitic statements – in some cases using images of Jewish candidates clutching piles of cash – among them the former Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, who tweeted an anitsemitic ad warning that three Jewish billionaires – George Soros, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg – were planning to steal the election. Then, of course, there is Trump’s own long history of antisemitic remarks, which include his claim that among neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville in August 2017, “there were some very fine people”.
It should not be difficult to recognize the meaningful distinction between Ilhan Omar’s recent comments and the kind of antisemitism and xenophobia surging on the right that led a rightwing extremist to murder 11 Jews in a synagogue.
The current moment demands the ability and the moral clarity to distinguish between real threats and manufactured ones, between friends and foes. Ilhan Omar’s criticism of US support for the Israeli government’s policies may make some people uncomfortable – and perhaps it even should. But such criticism does not constitute antisemitism, nor does it threaten the lives of American Jews or other marginalized people. The Republican party’s tolerance of open white nationalism, on the other hand, does.
If the Democratic party genuinely wants to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, there are far better ways to do so than publicly disciplining Ilhan Omar for challenging US foreign policy on Israel. The party’s rush to censure her only reaffirms the truth of the very thing Omar is being criticized for asserting.
Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at Dissent. Previously, he worked at +972 Magazine and was based in Jerusalem
It should not be difficult to recognize the meaningful distinction between Ilhan Omar’s recent comments and the kind of antisemitism surging on the right
Wed 6 Mar 2019 20.11 EST
Guardian
Ilhan Omar’s most recent comments have been stripped entirely of their context, their intentions twisted and reversed. During an event in Washington DC last week, she spoke sensitively about her commitment to human rights advocacy, her experiences of Islamophobia, and her compassion for her Jewish constituents. Then Omar said: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country ... I want to ask, why is it OK for me to talk about the influence of the NRA, of fossil-fuel industries, or big pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobby that is influencing policy?”
It wasn’t long before Republicans and centrist Democrats pounced. The backlash has reached such a degree of absurdity that Omar’s own party plans to censure her for her remarks. This is something the Democrats did not do in response to baldly antisemitic statements by Republicans, nor even, as Jeffrey Isaac wisely points out, in the wake of the massacre in Pittsburgh last October – the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, incited by Donald Trump and his supporters’ xenophobic rhetoric.
To be sure, Omar’s comments were not perfect – few people are flawless during unscripted panels or debates. And given the unfair and disproportionate amount of scrutiny she faces, perhaps it would have been wiser to have avoided some of the terms she used – in particular, “allegiance to a foreign country”. But what she said was not antisemitic: on the contrary, the full text of Omar’s remarks shows that she was careful not to conflate the pro-Israel lobby (which is also comprised of non-Jewish evangelical Zionists) or the state of Israel with all Jews, nor did she employ the dual loyalty canard, which asserts that Jews are more loyal to each other (or Israel) than to the countries they live in.
In fact, Omar did not say anything that other critics have not said before: that the pro-Israel lobby enforces rigid support for the increasingly rightwing Israeli government’s policies, and that questioning US support for a government that commits human rights abuses – some of which, the UN recently warned, may be war crimes – should be acceptable if not encouraged. If she were not a black, hijab-wearing Muslim woman, the reaction to her words surely would have been different.
That this is the second round of such condemnation of Omar in the span of a month is sadly not surprising. Since the new cohort of progressive Democratic legislators was sworn in last January, Republicans have explicitly and unapologetically attempted to use accusations of antisemitism as a cudgel against the rising left and as a way to erode Jewish support for the Democrats.
Norm Coleman, a Republican operative and registered foreign agent of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, admitted as much to the New York Times this year when he said that the purpose of the anti-BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) bill passed by the Senate was to send the message that Jews will “be much more comfortable in the Republican party”. And, in a show of truly deep cynicism this past week, Republicans added language on antisemitism into a resolution to end US support for the war in Yemen with the expectation that Democrats would object; when the Democrats accepted it, the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, denied the bill a vote. “Right now,” tweeted Senator Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser Matt Duss, “there’s a resolution sitting the Senate that would end both the Yemen war *and* make clear Congress’s commitment to combating anti-Semitism. But McConnell won’t bring it up for a vote.”
The Republicans’ weaponization of antisemitism to stymie progressive policies is also meant to distract from the antisemitism rampant within Republicans’ own ranks. Just this week, the Ohio representative Jim Jordan, a Republican, tweeted an outrageously antisemitic statement at the New York Democratic representative Jerrold Nadler, which implied he was in the pay of the Jewish billionaire Tom Steyer, whose last name Jordan spelled with a dollar sign in place of an S.
Jordan’s tweet is not anomalous. During the 2018 midterm elections, a number of Republican candidates made blatantly antisemitic statements – in some cases using images of Jewish candidates clutching piles of cash – among them the former Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, who tweeted an anitsemitic ad warning that three Jewish billionaires – George Soros, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg – were planning to steal the election. Then, of course, there is Trump’s own long history of antisemitic remarks, which include his claim that among neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville in August 2017, “there were some very fine people”.
It should not be difficult to recognize the meaningful distinction between Ilhan Omar’s recent comments and the kind of antisemitism and xenophobia surging on the right that led a rightwing extremist to murder 11 Jews in a synagogue.
The current moment demands the ability and the moral clarity to distinguish between real threats and manufactured ones, between friends and foes. Ilhan Omar’s criticism of US support for the Israeli government’s policies may make some people uncomfortable – and perhaps it even should. But such criticism does not constitute antisemitism, nor does it threaten the lives of American Jews or other marginalized people. The Republican party’s tolerance of open white nationalism, on the other hand, does.
If the Democratic party genuinely wants to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, there are far better ways to do so than publicly disciplining Ilhan Omar for challenging US foreign policy on Israel. The party’s rush to censure her only reaffirms the truth of the very thing Omar is being criticized for asserting.
Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at Dissent. Previously, he worked at +972 Magazine and was based in Jerusalem
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