Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Partnered with Vicious Anti-Semites to Plan Their Trip to Israel
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Partnered with Vicious Anti-Semites to Plan Their Trip to Israel
By DAVID FRENCH, National Review, August 16, 2019
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 15, 2019. (Erin Scott/Reuters)
This should be a national scandal. To the extent that I care at all about Israel blocking entry to two U.S. congresswomen who partner with anti-Semites who seek its destruction, I agree with critics who argue that Bibi Netanyahu should not appear to bow to Donald Trump’s tweeted demands and that blocking Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from visiting Israel handed them a short-term propaganda victory. But that’s not the most important part of the story.
The most important element of the story is the fact that two American congresswomen shunned a bipartisan congressional delegation to Israel to go on an independent trip to Israel sponsored by vicious anti-Semites. Another important element of the story is that, as of today, the mainstream media have whitewashed Omar and Tlaib’s vile associations.
Writing yesterday, the Washington Post said that “Omar and Tlaib’s trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank was planned by Miftah , a nonprofit organization headed by Palestinian lawmaker and longtime peace negotiator Hanan Ashrawi.” The New York Times described it as an organization “headed by a longtime Palestinian lawmaker.” In its editorial, the New York Times editorial board identified it as a group “that promotes ‘global awareness and knowledge of Palestinian realities.’”
This is a whitewash. Thanks to a Twitter thread from the Washington Examiner’s Seth Mandel — who pointed to multiple additional sources — I started looking at the articles and views published on the Miftah website, and it was like peeling an onion of evil. There was layer upon layer of vile anti-Semitism.
First, the group actually published blood libel , posting an article that accused “the Jews [of using] the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.” When pro-Israel bloggers condemned the article, Miftah first claimed that the attacks against the piece were part of a “ smear campaign ” and minimized the reference to blood libel as merely “briefly addressed.”
It was just a light sprinkling of blood libel. Move along, nothing to see here.
The organization later issued a more complete apology , but we’ve barely gotten started with this vile group. It’s also published an American neo-Nazi treatise called “Who Rules America: The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken” ( archived here ).
As Vox ’s Jane Coaston explained , “the original source was National Vanguard, a neo-Nazi group founded in 2005 in Charlottesville by members of the National Alliance.” The National Alliance “was for a time the best financed and best organized white nationalist group in America.” And to give you a sense of its ideology, here are two paragraphs from the treatise:
"The Jew-controlled entertainment media have taken the lead in persuading a whole generation that homosexuality is a normal and acceptable way of life; that there is nothing at all wrong with White women dating or marrying Black men, or with White men marrying Asian women; that all races are inherently equal in ability and character — except that the character of the White race is suspect because of a history of oppressing other races; and that any effort by Whites at racial self-preservation is reprehensible.
We must oppose the further spreading of this poison among our people, and we must break the power of those who are spreading it. It would be intolerable for such power to be in the hands of any alien minority, with values and interests different from our own. But to permit the Jews, with their 3,000-year history of nation-wrecking, from ancient Egypt to Russia, to hold such power over us is tantamount to race suicide. Indeed, the fact that so many White Americans today are so filled with a sense of racial guilt and self-hatred that they actively seek the death of their own race is a deliberate consequence of Jewish media control."
I look forward to hearing apologists argue that these statements are merely critiques of “Israeli policies.”
But that’s not all, not by a long shot. The group celebrates terrorists, including an evil woman who helped murder 13 Israeli children . In an article titled “ Let Us Honor Our Own ,” a Miftah contributor describes Dalal Al Mughrabi as “a Palestinian fighter who was killed during a military operation against Israel in 1978” and as one of the Palestinian people’s “national heroes.”
The so-called “military operation” is more widely known as the “ Coastal Road Massacre ,” a bus hijacking that resulted in the deaths of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children.
Al Mughrabi is hardly the only terrorist Miftah celebrates. It described female suicide bomber Wafa Idrees as the “the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause.” It singles out for recognition Hanadi Jaradat, a woman who blew herself up in a restaurant, killing 21 people (including four children).
The founder of Miftah herself, Ms. Ashrawi, excused jihadist violence by telling an interviewer that “you cannot somehow adopt the language of either the international community or the occupier by describing anybody who resists as terrorist.”
And of course Miftah published an article asking whether Israel was a proper homeland for the Jewish people:
Under the heading "Is Israel the Only Possible Homeland for Jews?", this article questioning the appropriateness of Israel as the location of a Jewish homeland was posted by Miftah, one of the sponsors of the proposed Tlaib/Omar visit to Israel: https://t.co/KX1PwrZGy1 pic.twitter.com/eMPOfhopYQ — Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) August 16, 2019
I can keep going, but the evidence above should be sufficient to establish the truth. It would and should be a national scandal if GOP congressmen intended to partner with white nationalists during a visit overseas. It should be a national scandal that members of the American government intended to partner with vicious anti-Semites on their own propaganda tour.
After its thunderous denunciations of Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump, will pundits, editorial boards, and reporters take a look at the scandal hiding in plain sight? Will they hold Tlaib and Omar accountable for their vile associations? Now is a good time to demonstrate their commitment to reporting on the full context of international disputes and exposing one of the world’s oldest hatreds. We shall see how they respond.
DAVID FRENCH is a senior writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. @davidafrench
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"This should be a national scandal."
It SHOULD be, but I suspect the vast majority of the media will ignore it, as it doesn't fit their agenda.
Of course not. We all know that. Had they joined the original fact-finding tour, there would have been no question about their being allowed to come, but they made it so obvious what their real intention was that Israel is blameless in disallowing them. In the circumstances, IMO, anyone who does not agree with what Israel did has either an ignorant or else nefarious agenda as well.
You got that right!
Keeping trouble makers out of your country is a wise thing to do
I have a feeling I should lock this for the night. It's 10 pm here and I'm going to sleep. I'll unlock it in around 9 hours from now.
UNLOCKED - GO TO IT
I don't believe any of our friends here wish to defend the anti-Semites!
I just wonder what Pelosi is going to do to save her Party.
Pelosi might have to smack the newbies around a bit to get them in line.
Not going to look good for Democrats when the GOP paints the Democratic Party as supporting BDS, open borders, free healthcare for illegal aliens and legal aliens, and decriminalizing illegal border crossings, along with free crap for all!
I doubt Pelosi will do much. I think she is more than a little afraid of the four horsewomen!
I don't know why she is afraid of them
Surely there aren't enough crazies in America who would support those clowns?
There were certainly enough to get them elected. That's scary enough to begin with! Besides those clowns are youngsters hungry for power so of course Pelosi sees them as a threat.
I'll bet (and I certainly hope) that if those who voted them in are up to date with what they've been doing, they won't make the same mistake in 2020.
@4.1.5
@4.1.6
Yes, they can probably win another election in their districts.
Heck, even Pelosi admitted that a glass of water with a "D" behind it could win an election on those districts.
But as only a couple out of 435, I am not worried about any power they imagine they can wield.
That is possible, but I don't think even most Democrats are THAT crazy!
Surely the old guard will continue to outnumber the progressives. I really believe that if they let "The Squad" take over the Party, it will sit in the back seat for a long time.
That is probably true.
But what the newbies are failing to realize is that most of America doesn't support them--just mainly their own districts.
They also fail to realize that the GOP will tarnish the Democratic Party because of their actions.
IMO I believe they've already succeeded in making many voters who normally have voted Democrat rethink what they will do in 2020. The way things are going this could be prime time for an Independent to seek success.
Hopefully everyone will behave tonight so I don't have to "Lock it Up" (that sounds familiar for some reason....)
I have decided to leave thenewstalkers at this time, and am not certain if or when I will decide to return. I am not deleting my account in order to retain access to the photos and articles I have posted. However, I believe it is necessary to lock the comments on this seed as I will not be available to moderate.