Omar and the Conspiracy Democrats Her colleagues portray the freshman as a naïf. But she has a clear and menacing modus operandi. By Elliot Kaufman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/omar-and-the-conspiracy-democrats-11552245502
To hear Speaker Nancy Pelosi tell it, Rep. Ilhan Omar is a naïf. Nothing the Minnesota freshman has said was “intended in an anti-Semitic way,” Mrs. Pelosi explained last week. She merely “has a different experience in the use of words” and “doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with meaning.” Yet Ms. Omar has been consistent not only in attacking the pro-Israel lobby, but in purveying a conspiratorial view of the world. The evidence-free accusation that illegitimate moneyed or foreign interests are corrupting her opponents and dictating U.S. policy is her modus operandi.
Before Ms. Omar was sworn in on Jan. 3, she had already been dogged by a menacing 2012 tweet, which she deleted late last month: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” That sounds like a classic conspiracy theory, with the evil force spreading false consciousness to keep its hand hidden.
On Jan. 15, not two weeks into the job, she tweeted about Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s turnabout to support President Trump: “They got to him, he is compromised!” Two days later, she mused on CNN that the senator was being blackmailed and it “has to do with his funding.” After repeated questioning, Ms. Omar admitted it was merely her “opinion” but claimed the truth was “visible” to her and that “there are lots of Americans who agree.”
Then on Jan. 24 she propounded a conspiracy about Venezuela: “Trump’s efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region.” Never mind that interim President Juan Guaidó’s Popular Will party is a member of the Socialist International, not the “far right.” The next day Ms. Omar dismissed Mr. Guaido’s constitutional claims and shared a video from a 9/11 truther arguing that Trump has been a “gift to the war machine.” For the conspiratorial coup de grâce, Ms. Omar tweeted: “We cannot hand pick leaders for other countries on behalf of multinational corporate interests.”
On Feb. 10 Ms. Omar responded to an open question regarding why U.S. politicians are so supportive of Israel: They do it for the money. When a journalist asked who she thought was paying off her new colleagues, Ms. Omar didn’t prevaricate: “AIPAC!” That’s the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group that doesn’t make campaign contributions.
Ms. Omar defended her position until the entire Democratic House leadership condemned her “use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters” on Feb. 11. Then she relented, sort of. “I unequivocally apologize,” she said in a statement, then immediately equivocated. “At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics.”
A few weeks later, Ms. Omar walked back her apology and insisted that she was right all along. On a little-noticed podcast released Feb. 28 by the left-wing Intercept website, she was asked: “Was it a badly worded tweet that you were apologizing for, or was it for being anti-Semitic, wittingly or unwittingly?” Her answer: “Absolutely not. I apologized for the way that my words made people feel.” She then reiterated her original claim, complaining, “There were people who were actually condemning me for speaking the truth about the kind of influences that exist, that determine our foreign and domestic policies.”
On Feb. 27, the night before her interview went online, Ms. Omar said that the accusation of anti-Semitism “becomes designed to end the debate . . . no matter what it is we say.” But then she instantly remounted her hobbyhorse: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” She added that she fears her Jewish colleagues think everything she says about Israel is anti-Semitic because she’s Muslim.
Each time Ms. Omar repeats a calumny, her fellow Democrats become more convinced she doesn’t mean it, or that something else is more important. They’ve joined her in asserting that she’s unfairly singled out—that she is the real victim. On Wednesday Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren came to Ms. Omar’s defense, suggesting that critics are trying to silence debate about Israel, and citing threats she has received.
Ms. Omar has repeatedly doubled down on her conspiracies, but Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky offers the excuse that her colleague “comes from a different culture,” so “this is a learning moment for her.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “real concern” is Republican bigotry, which isn’t “treated the same way.” Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley said “we need to have equity in our outrage” and condemn Islamophobia, too—which the House did Thursday, approving a watered-down resolution originally meant to focus on anti-Semitism.
These are all tactics of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party: First, accuse critics of muzzling anti-Israel speech; then, complain about “disproportionate” attention to anti-Semitism; next, change the subject to bigotry from the right; finally, if forced to condemn anti-Semitism, dilute it with a kitchen-sink list of other prejudices.
The true danger to the Jews isn’t a few tone-deaf comments, but a political environment in which conspiracy theories reign. This is a bipartisan problem. Donald Trump once suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The president’s opponents have spent years spinning fantasies that he is a Russian agent. Wherever conspiracism succeeds, Jews will find themselves accused.
Anti-Semitism is the ultimate conspiracy theory. It’s the point at which the far right and far left meet to indict the shadowy moneyed elite controlling the government, the banks and the media, oppressing the masses and betraying the nation.
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