The recent dithering by the Democrats in the House of Representatives over the overt anti-Semitism spouting almost incessantly from the mouth of Ilhan Omar, Representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, as well as pouring from her fingertips onto Twitter and heaven knows where else was nothing short of disgusting. Their claim that they would denounce such unequivocally turned into a gigantic lie. The resulting statement was a pathetic denunciation of all forms of racism thus taking her statements of anti-Semitism as just a small matter and as such could be swept under the carpet with their great rebuke of all forms of hate as a generic bromide. The weak attempt at an apology rankled Congressman Lee Zeldin, Republican from New York first district, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus, who rose to give a scathing explanation as to why he was forced to vote against their poor excuse of denouncing the invectives against Jews and Israel by Ms. Omar (video below). The resolution was so watered down that it did not even bother to mention Representative Ilhan Omar while many Democrats went to the mat making reasons and excuses for her diatribes and epithets against one people and a single nation in the most derogatory and hurtful means possible. Her comments have been lauded by David Duke with his claiming that Ms. Omar is one of “the most important members” of Congress. Were she a Republican member of Congress, the knives and pitchforks would have been out with the tar brought to an uncomfortably hot temperature and the feathers ready with a car on the rails to send them out of town and off of any position they held. Instead, the Democrats equivocated, hemmed and hawed with the result that Ilhan Omar retains her position on one of the most coveted committees in the Congress, the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That is probably the deepest cut of them all.
Leaving her on a committee where the foreign policies of the United States are discussed and either approved or rejected with her hatred against a solid and faithful American ally is revolting. But this is not the worst of things. The Foreign Affairs Committee is often briefed by elite and high ranking members of the military and others from intelligence agencies where top secret and sensitive information is revealed. Ms. Omar has shown little allegiance or love for the United States and there have been mention that she may have had connections with groups diametrically opposed to the foreign allegiances of the United States. Her past made her appointment to this committee as a freshman congressperson questionable from the start. With her actions and statements since, her remaining on this committee is simply an abomination as well as a risk to the security of the nation. Ms. Pelosi’s explanations that Ms. Omar does not understand the implications of her statements and the other excuses put forward claiming her ignorance or coming from a different culture would be better made arguments for her removal from the Foreign Affairs Committee than means of pardoning her spewed hatreds. The weakness and complete lack of proper leadership only goes to reveal that Ms. Pelosi no longer, if she ever did, has the spinal fortitude to be Speaker of the House and is no longer up to making the leadership decisions as well as being too weak to stand behind what necessarily needs to be done to retain the proper respect of the rest of the House of Representatives. As Speaker, Ms. Pelosi is not just the person who leads the Democrats, that would be the next in line, the whip, but she is supposed to be the leader of the entire House of Representatives and as such, she has left that position sorely lacking. As far as we can tell, Representative Lee Zeldin was extremely gentle and kind in his remarks which could have been for more pointed and accusarial. What is telling is that not a single Democrat found anything questionable about the equivocation presented as a rebuke for Ms. Omar’s slights and downright slurs against Jews and Israel. Leaving her on the Foreign Affairs Committee is simply adding insult to injury.
But the problem with the Democrats and their relationships with Jews and Israel go far deeper than simply the outspoken and obvious anti-Semitism of Ilhan Omar, and that was what came to the fore with the lack of proper censuring of Ms. Omar. We must also add the fact that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) sent a fundraising email recently suggesting that AIPAC was coming after her and that the U.S.-Israeli relationship should be severed. This paranoia that the “Jews” are coming after her with animosity and abuse of their power is simply alluding to another anti-Semitic trope claiming the Jews have inordinate power over the government. The fundraising e-mail stated, “It’s official — AIPAC is coming after Alexandria, Ilhan, and Rashida. Rashida, Ilhan, and Alexandria have times dated to questions out foreign policy, and the influence of money in our political system. And now, lobbying groups across the board are working to punish them.” It then went on to ask for funding to “keep up the fight against lobbying and special interests of all forms in Washington.” One would beg to ask why was the only singled out lobby the one which is most closely allied with Israel and Jewish causes and none of the others were mentioned. There was no mention of the lobbying by Saudi Arabia which outspends AIPAC almost, if not more, than ten to one. Perhaps that is acceptable and supporting only Israel is the evil which must be fought. We chose Saudi Arabia as they are the most obvious lobbying force in Washington but we could have chosen any number of other nations even to include the European Union, Britain, Mexico, Canada or any of a host of other lobbyists. There are also the NRA, Exxon Mobil, AARP and a whole slew of companies and specific interest groups with a list of the top fifty which AIPAC is most obvious by their absence. I guess Ms. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has her work cut out for her if she is interested in ridding Washington on moneyed interest and desires reaching all the way down on the list to wherever it is that AIPAC is found in order to protect herself, Ilhan, and Rashida from the clutch of the Jewish claws of AIPAC. And just to make this short and all-inclusive, remember one vital thing history teaches and oft repeated by the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks would state, “We have learned that the hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.” For this reason alone, the people of the United States need to wake up and rout out the anti-Semitism in their midst before it has sufficient time to metastasize permeating throughout the society because anti-Semitism has a way of becoming something viral, to use familiar language, and once it does, it is near impossible to stop as its speed outpaces any efforts to restrain it and the spillover always takes many other innocents with it. This disease must be curbed before it has an opportunity to break past any ability to prevent the spread of the contagion. Take that as a warning of the fate which waits should America fail to fight this while it can be fought and before it takes over the power of the government. Already there is a blatant and hateful anti-Semite on one of the most sensitive and important committees of the House of Representatives, how much more of a warning is necessary?
Beyond the Cusp