My position is that Omar is not given any benefit of the doubt because she’s a Muslim immigrant from Somalia.
So if somebody can finagle a bigoted interpretation (her comments to the contrary be dammed) they will do so, and that’s the real bigotry at work.
I’ve looked. I can’t find anything where she talks about “the Jews”, or makes broad generalizations about how “they are”. Her criticisms are of a foreign nation engaged in activities that are subject to dispute.
It’s not antisemitism.
Your analogy doesn’t hold.
If she had said something like “I’m allowed to condemn Israel because I have Jewish friends”, I guess it would work.
But she simply flatly denied that she was referring to Jewish people.
It’s not “I can’t be racist because I have Black friends”; rather it’s “That wasn’t a racist statement because I wasn’t talking about race.”
I wonder how she could have made her point clearer that wouldn’t have been dismissed as self-serving. In reality, it was a clarification in response to misdirected criticism.
It wasn’t a bill, it was a resolution.
And of course it didn’t pass. Support or criticism of Israel is a huge hot button issue.
Republicans have made unwavering support part of their platform (and, in an act of presuming that America’s Jewish community is of a hive mind, complain that this hasn’t secured more Jewish votes), and Democrats are undoubtedly split on the issue (and therefore would probably prefer the issue to not exist).
Omar is clearly an outlier on this. Sort of like how Barbara Lee was the only person in congress who opposed war with Afghanistan after 9/11. Some people will take positions that are on the fringes of mainstream politics, out of principle.
It would be unfair to dismiss them outright as crazy or bigoted, but that’s what happens.
Okay, I think we’re talking past each other on a couple of issues, so I want to try to separate the various threads of the argument.
Q: Did Ilhan Omar say something overtly anti-semetic?
A: Overtly, no. Did she say various things that, as I stated earlier, play heavily into the tropes and language of anti-Semites? Absolutely. The trope about Jewish Bankers controlling the money (not just in the US) has been brought up in numerous articles, including the OG Straightdope.
Q: Did Ilhan Omar intend her remarks as a dogwhistle to those who are familiar with the tropes or as an anti-semitic statement?
A: IMHO (and in that of most of the posters to date seemingly) No. She had no such intent. but just like our recent thread about words such as “uppity” and it’s dark (pun intended) history, it means that anyone familiar with the stereotypes and usage will absolutely read that intent into her comments.
Q: Is Ilhan Omar being treated unfairly?
A: Yes, which seems to be where the thread is derailing. She’s absolutely being treated unfairly by the Republican party, and being held to a much Much higher standard than they will for any of their own.
Is she being treated unfairly by the posters in the thread? Well, that’s the debate. Did she “express antisemitism”? By intent, most of us are saying no. In fact, or in interpretation? Very likely! Is it fair? For what it’s worth, no, probably not, but if you’re a public figure, especially one capable of influencing actual legislation, you can and should be held to the highest standards.
What again, most of us saying, is that she was held to those higher standards, and she lived up to them. She acknowledged the problem, educated herself, and tried to clear up her intent. Which is the adult thing to do, and laudable.
And then the Republicans used it as a pretext to remove her. For reasons having a lot more to do with her politics, religion, sex, and color as a blatant play to their base.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I can’t help but wonder how much the fact that she is invoking Allah rather than God is what triggers a reaction of calling what she said antisemitic. Imagine rather than being a Muslim Somali immigrant saying that verbiage about Israel she had been a Christian of European decent making the exact same statement about, for example, the world more or less shrugging about Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk back in 2014, stating “Russia has hypnotized the world, may God awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Russia.” With how often God is invoked in Congress, I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelash.
Nobody in this thread is saying otherwise.
I’m giving her lots of benefit of the doubt, in large part for that reason. I’ve said repeatedly in this thread that I’m quite ready to believe that she spoke in ignorance of how the statement would sound to American Jews; or for that matter to American anti-Semites.
If what you mean to say is that Republicans in Congress aren’t giving her any benefit of the doubt because she’s a Muslim immigrant from Somalia, I strongly suspect that you’re correct; though it probably also has something to do with her being a woman, and something to do with her being a liberal Democrat.
What you are absolutely refusing to see is that her actual words do have current and historical connotations, whether or not she intended those connotations.
I don’t think I can say any of this more clearly. I wish you’d go re-read my actual posts, and respond to them instead of to the Republicans in Congress, who as far as I know aren’t posting in this thread and aren’t listening to either of us.
I do not know how many times it makes any sense to say this. I’m concluding that you can’t hear it. Intentions are not the only issue. Effect is also an issue. That she thought she wasn’t talking about anti-Semitism does not change the fact that she sounded as if she were.
I think a lot of Jews are aware that some of the conservative support of Israel (no, I’m not saying all of it) comes not from any love of or respect for Jews, or any value of Israel as an ally, but from the fact that the Book of Revelations assumes the existence of Israel. Some of them think that the existence of Israel is a necessary pre-requisite for their Second Coming. Once their Jesus shows up again, they expect all the Jews to either convert to Christianity immediately or, quite literally, go to hell.
This. Exactly.
ETA: Which is the rest of the reason why I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.
This. Plus the fact that, if the entire Muslim religion and all its adherents simply ceased to exist in a Rod-Serling-esque scenario, most rightwingers would go right back to denying Jews memberships in their country clubs and burning wooden Stars of Davids on their lawns. Jews are only accepted amongst such people because there’s a scarier bunch of boogeymen on the loose.
But AIPAC, to which she was referring, is about the money as well as the votes.
According to former Representative Brian Baird (D-Washington), “Any member of Congress knows that AIPAC is associated indirectly with significant amounts of campaign spending if you’re with them, and significant amounts against you if you’re not with them.” “AIPAC-connected money” amounted to about $200,000 in each of his campaigns for office — “and that’s two hundred thousand going your way, versus the other way: a four-hundred-thousand-dollar swing.”[43] AIPAC-directed campaign contributions—as with many interest groups—came with considerable “tactical input”. AIPAC staffers told Baird and other lawmakers, “No, we don’t say it that way, we say it this way.” Baird complained, “There’s a whole complex semantic code you learn. … After a while, you find yourself saying and repeating it as if it were fact.”[7]
…[edited to add] This was unintentionally a reply to @CaptMurdock . Was supposed to hit reply to the thread, apologies for tagging you in.
Ilhan Omar’s public support for the Jewish people over the years:
I personally have no reason to doubt any of the statements Omar has made. It seems fairly unequivocal to me.
Yes, I concur. Nothing overtly antisemitic. Some, let us say “unfortunate” comments, that can be read as anti-Semitic.
I concur on this also.
There is room to criticize her for some of her comments, but not to condemn her.
Has AIPAC donated $ to her opponents? I mean, if they had, that is pretty condemning.
I had most of this post as a draft and most of this has been covered by other posters since, but whatever.
Respectfully, no. I’m not digging through that garbage for you (or anybody). It’s freely available online. Maybe disable your tracking cookies before you start searching.
I’m not going to get into a game of “how could this have been worded differently” with you. There are a number of ancient and well-worn stereotypes about Jewish people - that they secretly control the world, that they secretly control the world’s money, that they are incapable of loyalty to anybody but themselves, and so on.
As with in this case, sometimes you should be more careful about the language you use in certain contexts.
If American Jews are sensitive to the conflation of “Israel” and “Jew” it’s because that’s one of the ways antisemitism is directed at us, from both liberals and conservatives.
Is Ilhan Omar getting more heat because of who she is? Absolutely. Is it a gross double standard? Undoubtedly. Is she blameless? Absolutely not, by her own admission. It can be two things.
Wait, what? When did she say anything that could even be interpreted to mean that she was referring to Jewish bankers controlling the money?
I believe that’s an inference people made when she suggested that the support for Israel was based around money.
Of course she was just referring to how powerful their lobbyists are, which is factual. And that power is through money, as all lobbyist power is.
Calling her antisemitic over her comments is a real snowflake moment.
This is true. To be fair, though, the problem is heavily exacerbated by specific Israeli political leaders who deploy exactly the same conflation for their own interested purposes. For decades they have been exhorting non-Israeli Jews to support Israeli policies unquestioningly, on the grounds that whatever Israel does is done for the sake of all Jews, that the Israeli state is the natural home of the Jewish people and the Jewish people are the natural constituents of the Israeli state, irrespective of official legal nationality.
They can’t go on endlessly demanding that Jews in general should see no daylight between themselves and Israel, and then turn around and claim that it’s automatically antisemitic for non-Jews to believe the rhetoric that they themselves have been spouting.
They can’t, can they? Just watch 'em!
Calling Jews “snowflakes” over what we feel is antisemitism is a truly clueless position to be in. Do you tell people who are Black to just suck it up over the whole police violence thing?
You are making my point by equating a factual comment that she made with the systematic murder of Black people.
Calling her antisemitic and saying that she said something that sounded antisemitic are two drastically different things.
Which Omar herself apparently understood just fine.
…But they’re not. They can be different, but is not saying antisemitic things a form of antisemitism? (That’s a rhetorical question, of course it is.)
No, my comment is about you referring to Jews upset by what we feel is antisemitic as snowflakes. This has nothing to do with Omar.