Ilhan Omar's latest anti-Semitic comments

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If only AIPAC were half as influential as conspiracy loons like Duke and Omar think...

You are half right. They are wrongly considered the 800-pound gorilla in the lobbying room, though they are still at least a 400-pound gorilla.

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Both things can be true.
AIPAC is a shady organization which essentially bribes politicians so they always support Likud's hawkish policies.
And Omar seems to be all too eager to use anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes.

I'm not defending AIPAC, per say. They can be subject to legitimate criticism, and I'm not fond of PACs in general. But at least you, of all people, recognize that Omar has said vile things about Jewish people.

I am tempted to agree, especially if someone can find me some hard evidence that she appears not to support a two-state solution. However, it seems to me that when she was explicitly asked about financial support for pro-israel / anti Palestinian policies in this country, she seem to quite rightly imply that AIP AC has a lot of dough. That's just fact, and I'm not sure how being specifically asked about the root of strong Congressional support for Likud's aggressive colonization policies relies in part on big spending by aipac is particularly anti-semitic. Yes, she could have done better in communicating this message which at least implies the old Trope about Jews having all the money, etc, etc. But on the ranking of anti-Semitic tropes I find the overt General threat of 3 well-known Jewish billionaires being a threat to the Republican party to be a couple steps worse.

This is NOT to say that excuses Omar or any Democrat from anti-Semitism because the other side dabbles in it. Not one bit. I would have used the same example if the Democrats had run  an ad  raising the Specter of Sheldon Center whatever his name in Nevada is, along with two other prominent Republican Jewish billionaires if they existed, as equally bad. On that same uniform scale, I'm just not seeing Omar's being explicitly anti-Semitic. I'm having trouble seeing where any of four posts in that article are particularly anti-semitic, with the one possible exception of tweeting everything being About the Benjamins being something more of a gaff in pointing out how a i p a c has undeniably strong financial influence in Washington.

So, help?

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Both things can be true.
AIPAC is a shady organization which essentially bribes politicians so they always support Likud's hawkish policies.
And Omar seems to be all too eager to use anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes.

I'm not defending AIPAC, per say. They can be subject to legitimate criticism, and I'm not fond of PACs in general. But at least you, of all people, recognize that Omar has said vile things about Jewish people.

I am tempted to agree, especially if someone can find me some hard evidence that she appears not to support a two-state solution. However, it seems to me that when she was explicitly asked about financial support for pro-israel / anti Palestinian policies in this country, she seem to quite rightly imply that AIP AC has a lot of dough. That's just fact, and I'm not sure how being specifically asked about the root of strong Congressional support for Likud's aggressive colonization policies relies in part on big spending by aipac is particularly anti-semitic. Yes, she could have done better in communicating this message which at least implies the old Trope about Jews having all the money, etc, etc. But on the ranking of anti-Semitic tropes I find the overt General threat of 3 well-known Jewish billionaires being a threat to the Republican party to be a couple steps worse.

This is NOT to say that excuses Omar or any Democrat from anti-Semitism because the other side dabbles in it. Not one bit. I would have used the same example if the Democrats had run  an ad  raising the Specter of Sheldon Center whatever his name in Nevada is, along with two other prominent Republican Jewish billionaires if they existed, as equally bad. On that same uniform scale, I'm just not seeing Omar's being explicitly anti-Semitic. I'm having trouble seeing where any of four posts in that article are particularly anti-semitic, with the one possible exception of tweeting everything being About the Benjamins being something more of a gaff in pointing out how a i p a c has undeniably strong financial influence in Washington.

So, help?

"The Benjamins" comment is clearly a reference to the same kind of anti-Semitic financial trope as has been employed by many on the right in referring to George Soros and others. And she retweeted another comment calling Jews "hook-nosed".

Cite/link? Serious question.

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Yet if a Republican made comments like these Democrats would be demanding their resignation immediately.

Few if any demanded McCarthy's resignation when he promoted that loaded as hell "liberal Jewish billionaires are trying to take over the government" ad.

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Antisemitism these days is very strong among the Muslim immigrant crowd, especially among those from the most backwards regions like Somalia, AfPak, Iraq etc.

No surprise.

OK this is bad even by your standards.

Mmmhwhat ?

It's common knowledge that Muslim immigrants from these backwards, highly religious failed states are amongst the sharpest antisemites around.

There are studies out of Europe that show Muslim immigrants have already passed actual Neo-Nazis in antisemitic crimes in several countries (such as France) ...

Just like it's "common knowledge" hispanics are criminal, blacks are lazy, and jews are greedy.

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Yet if a Republican made comments like these Democrats would be demanding their resignation immediately.

Few if any demanded McCarthy's resignation when he promoted that loaded as hell "liberal Jewish billionaires are trying to take over the government" ad.

Attacking George Soros is far different than attacking a Jewish Organization which works bipartisanship to make sure Israel remains safe and secure .


I know many people who hate George Soros , and not only are they not anti-Semitic they are very much against people who are. George Soros is hated because he is one of the top contributors to the Democratic Party along with many other liberal parties and  causes around the world   , and gets no more hate from Republicans in general than the Koch Brithers get from Democrats in general .


Attacking a Jewish Organization which works bipartisanaly to make sure Israel remains safe and secure at the very least is Anti-Semitic

Wait a minute. Now we're not talking about whether criticisms of the targets are anti-semitic or not based on the content of said attacks, but based on which targets one politically supports more. That is completely bass-ackwards. An attack is anti-Semitic based on what it says and seeks to communicate. That holds true whether the target is Chuck Schumer or the guy that killed Yitzhak Rabin.

And FYI, aipac largely seeks to push Israeli colonization of the Westbank under the guise of a purported two-state solution. The I and many other Americans don't consider them particularly admirable at all.

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Yet if a Republican made comments like these Democrats would be demanding their resignation immediately.

Few if any demanded McCarthy's resignation when he promoted that loaded as hell "liberal Jewish billionaires are trying to take over the government" ad.

You are truly a Dem Hack.

Republicans Attacking George Soros in ads doesn't mean they are anti-semitic lol. The reason they attack him in all the ads is he is one of the top contributors to liberal causes and the Democratic Party, just like Democrats attack the Koch Brothers in ads. Dems run ads that say the Koch Brothers are trying to take over the government and are the ones who secretly control the GOP all the time too.

If you are as involved in Partisan Politics as George Soros and the Koch Brothers the other side will go after you and hard.


Attacking AIPAC is totally different because unlike Soros/Koch Brothers it's goal is not Partisan Politics but to ensure that Israel remains safe, secure and the US remains staunch allies with Israel and they work with members of both parties as well.

Your quaint view of AIPACs aims is rather unicorn and rainbows territory.

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Without getting into Omar's tweets specifically, whether or not there was racist subtext or tropes, how she went about getting her point across, all of that... the mainstream media has been relatively silent on this one simple fact. Simply criticizing the Israeli government in and of itself is NOT anti-semetic or racist, and anybody who says otherwise is trying to sell you something. A government is an organization of people (with power) whose actions cannot be blamed on an entire country full of civilians, and people who share that ethnic makeup living abroad.

HOW you critcize Israel can certainly be racist or anti-semetic, obviously.

Newsweek reported the other day that Omar's comments have received 5 times as much coverage on cable news than Steve Kings explicit defense of white supremacy. I don't think we can accuse the media of having been silent on the matter.

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Without getting into Omar's tweets specifically, whether or not there was racist subtext or tropes, how she went about getting her point across, all of that... the mainstream media has been relatively silent on this one simple fact. Simply criticizing the Israeli government in and of itself is NOT anti-semetic or racist, and anybody who says otherwise is trying to sell you something. A government is an organization of people (with power) whose actions cannot be blamed on an entire country full of civilians, and people who share that ethnic makeup living abroad.

HOW you critcize Israel can certainly be racist or anti-semetic, obviously.

Newsweek reported the other day that Omar's comments have received 5 times as much coverage on cable news than Steve Kings explicit defense of white supremacy. I don't think we can accuse the media of having been silent on the matter.

Steve King, of course, has been effectively disciplined by his party, having been stripped of his committee assignments.

Ilhan Omar remains unsanctioned.

Steve King should have been disciplined 10 years ago. No cookie points for doing the right thing with such delay.

Not to mention be insanely dishonest idea that Steve Kings consistent decades-long. Roaded support of racist white supremacist policies, which a game Republicans completely tolerated until he crossed a line that should have been irrelevant of actually defending white supremacy by name, verses Omar justifiably criticizing the Israeli right wing is having an inordinate influence over American foreign policy and then AIP AC being an 800-pound Financial gorilla in American politics, but foolishly did so in terms that foolishly were indirectly reminiscent of tropes about Jews having money and running the world.

But of course, leave it to the two kings of whataboutism to be completely unable to distinguish between speeding offences and aggravated vehicular homicide.

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I'm convinced almost no one actually cares about this kind of stuff and just pretends to because they believe it will help the political party of their choice.

And yet the tepid response thanks, masked by outright embracing overt racist like King & Co, with Trump as the top, by the Republican Party, versus rather decisive and concrete action by the Democratic party, demonstrates that's not really true. You see, that's a large part of why white Democrats are Democrats. They don't want a political party that is beholden to bigotry has a fundamental part of their electoral strategy.

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This isn't appropriate.

To put it mildly.