Opinion: What was, and what was not, troubling about the Ilhan Omar affair
By Charles Lane Charles Lane Editorial writer and columnist specializing in economic and fiscal policy Email Bio Follow Opinion writer March 11 at 6:23 PM A whole weekend, plus a couple of days, has elapsed since the House Democratic majority dealt with the controversy over Rep. Ilhan Omar’s allegedly anti-Semitic statements by passing a generic resolution condemning bigotry and hatred.
Incorrect. In recent weeks, Omar offered no new criticism of U.S. policy or what she has called “the apartheid Israeli regime.” What she did was to attack Israel’s supporters in the United States, and specifically in Congress. She did so by suggesting their motives were corrupt: either to enforce “allegiance to a foreign country,” or to accumulate political cash from pro-Israel lobbyists — “the Benjamins.
In other words, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be right that Omar did not intend her comments “in an anti-Semitic way” and Omar would still be wrong to have spoken as she did. For all that, it is simply not the case that support for Israel in a country where 59 percent of the public favors Israel over the Palestinians is merely a function of AIPAC’s influence.
She wants, it seems, to heighten the contradictions, in part by calling out supporters of Israel and bracketing AIPAC with the Republican-leaning National Rifle Association or the fossil fuel industry. Nothing about this drama, which began with Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot L. Engel decrying Omar for “a vile anti-Semitic slur” and ended with Pelosi’s apologia, would discourage Omar — or any progressives who also feel that the time has come to fight fire with fire. We can expect her future attacks to be more carefully phrased, but we can expect them to continue.
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