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Another week, another anti-Semitic outburst. So it goes for Ilhan Omar, the first-ever Somali-American elected to congress. Can we stop saying she is ‘naïve’, that she has ‘misunderstandings’ about Jewish people, that she is just ‘not educated’ about the role of anti-Semitism in history? Because after her latest remarks over the weekend, it should be clear by now that these vile prejudices are Omar’s deeply held beliefs, and concern an issue (Israel) that is central to her politics.
Omar has been widely celebrated in the media as a diversity path-breaker since her election in November. Along with Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, she is one of the first two Muslim women in congress. As confirmation of her new prominence in popular culture, Omar appears on the cover of the current Rolling Stone, as one of the ‘Women Shaping the Future’, along with the omnipresent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But, as we’re learning, the hijab-wearing woman laughing on the cover of Rolling Stone holds some pretty nasty views about Jews. Last month, in an interview on CNN, she defended her 2012 tweet that claimed ‘Israel has hypnotised the world’ for its ‘evil doings’, which recalled old anti-Semitic claims about Jews’ supposed occult powers. Under pressure, she apologised.
A few weeks ago, Omar said US elected officials defended Israel for money, tweeting ‘It’s all about the Benjamins’. When asked who exactly funded these politicians, she replied ‘AIPAC’, as in the American Israel Political Action Committee. Here, Omar harkened back to the longstanding anti-Semitic view that Jews conspire to control the world with their money. She wasn’t just questioning AIPAC’s role (as it happens, AIPAC does not donate to political candidates); she was claiming that Jewish money was the only reason (‘it’s all about…’) that US politicians defend Israel. After Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democrats in the House, criticised Omar for her ‘use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations’, she apologised for a second time.
But, with her latest outpourings over the past week, Omar has revealed her apologies were not sincere. Speaking on a panel at a Washington DC bookstore event, she smiled when an audience member shouted ‘It’s all about the Benjamins’. She went on to explain her earlier remarks: ‘I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country’ – in other words, how American politicians, especially Jewish ones, have an ‘allegiance’ to Israel, not the US. This is a longstanding smear that says Jewish politicians are disloyal and cannot be trusted. As the liberal writer Jonathan Chait says,
‘Omar is directly invoking the hoary myth of dual loyalty, in which the Americanness of Jews is inherently suspect, and their political participation must be contingent upon proving their patriotism’. As it happens, Omar was sharing the platform that night with her fellow Muslim congresswoman, Tlaib, who herself charged Jews with dual loyalty in January, when she said political supporters of Israel ‘forgot what country they represent’.
Ugh, what ugly, low-life arguments. Criticisms came down on Omar again, now from Eliot Engel, the Democrat chair of the house foreign affairs committee that Omar sits on, and from Nita Lowey, a fellow Democrat in congress. This time, however, Omar decided to double down, rather than apologise. In response to Lowey, she tweeted: ‘I should not be expected to have allegiance / pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in congress or serve on committee.’ Again, Omar just can’t hide her true animosity – she truly believes pro-Israel arguments are demands she swear ‘allegiance’ to a foreign country (Israel), rather than the US. This is, of course, nonsense. The real issue is that she accuses pro-Israel Americans of being agents of Israel, not loyal Americans.
Omar is now falling back on the kneejerk defence that it is Islamophobic to criticise Muslims. ‘A lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim’, she said the other night, as if her comments sparked no legitimate concerns. In her earlier apology, Omar wrote: ‘I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity.’ This is a thinly veiled threat that she will accuse others of being anti-Muslim if they criticise her. To underline her claim of victimhood,
Omar highlighted a poster at a Republican event in West Virginia, that showed her photo in front of the burning World Trade Center buildings on 9/11, with the caption ‘“Never forget” – you said… I am proof you have forgotten’. That poster was wrong and slanderous to associate Omar (and potentially all Muslims in the US) with terrorism. But it was put up by an event exhibitor, not the Republican Party, whose representatives took it down and denounced it. More to the point, the bigotry of a crank in West Virginia does not excuse the bigotry of a congresswoman who is on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Source: Spiked Online