By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Perhaps the new Israel-bashing caucus in Congress will evolve into a more evenhanded throng. Perhaps.
It would be nice if Democrats Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would become more reasonable when they talk Israel, but it is doubtful that will happen. They behave as if they were bought and paid for to jab at Israel with every opportunity and, simultaneously, ignore Palestinian transgressions.
Their attitudes stir questions of whether they are coordinating with pro-Arab forces to undermine Israel. There is a years-long pattern of Palestinian advocates attempting to influence policy in business, academia, and low-level politics in the United States. Now we have three people in Congress with openly narrow views on Israel that they so far refuse to change.
In the past week, the first two Muslim women to join the House of Representatives (Omar and Tlaib) responded to questions about their past activities, but only Omar made a respectable effort to counter critics. Omar’s attempt was hardly gap-free. No known statements were made by Ocasio-Cortez, who represents portions of Queens and the Bronx.
Tlaib’s response can be readily disposed of as the Anti-Defamation League urged her to explain her affiliation with an ally of terrorists, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted on Thursday (Jan. 17): “@RashidaTlaib was photographed at an event with Abbas Hamideh, a man who has praised terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and equated Zionists with Nazis. We ask her to clarify his attendance and denounce his anti-Semitism.”
Tlaib, of Detroit, wrote in a tweet after conservative media outlets reported on this development, “Right-wing media targeting me again rather than focusing on the President’s reckless government shutdown. Yes, I am Muslim and Palestinian. Get over it.”
Why make a point about being a Muslim and Palestinian? Some of her critics may be anti-Muslim, but the ADL has fought bias against Muslims, and the ADL is no right-wing operation. She was born in Michigan, and her family is from Israel’s territories.
She was also attacked by an Israeli-born official in Hallandale Beach, Fla., Anabelle Lima-Taub, who wrote on Facebook: “A Hamas-loving anti-Semite has NO place in government! She is a danger and (I) would not put it past her to become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill.” In turn, Lima-Taub’s comment was blasted by another Hallandale official, Michele Lazarow, also Jewish, who said that despite her “major issues” with Tlaib “those issues are resolved through elections and debate, not by promoting a racist stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists.”
Take note: Lazarow must have gotten “over” Tlaib’s Muslim identity, if Lazarow ever had a problem with it, and she criticized a fellow Jew whom she believed was wrong. Have Tlaib, Omar or Ocasio-Cortez criticized the Palestinians?
Omar was asked by separate interviewers on Wednesday and Thursday to defend this seven-year-old tweet: “May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
“I only talk about the state of Israel,” she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. “It is really important for us to make sure that we are not associating the people with the country and its government.”
She also recounted that “those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that moment.”
All well and good that she regrets a statement from seven years ago, but what about an expedient switch less than three months ago?
When she campaigned for the office, Omar called the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement “counter-active and prevents dialogue” with Israel. Last November, a week after she was elected, she told the Muslim Girl website that she “believes in and supports the BDS movement,” as JTA reported.
In the it-takes-one-to-know-one department, Omar posted a tweet last Tuesday accusing Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, of supporting President Trump’s government shutdown because “they got to him. He is compromised.”
Did someone get to Omar?
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Ticker is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. He may be contacted via bruce.ticker@sdjewishworld.com