Thread by @JewhadiTM

The Democrats' Anti-Semitism Problem Isn't Going Away townhall.com/columnists/dav…

The problem is that "anti-Zionism" -- the predominant justification for violence, murder and hatred against Jews in Europe and the Middle East -- is a growing position on the American left.

Though Ilhan Omar embraces the worst caricatures of this ideology, it's her core contention regarding the Jewish state -- not her clumsy "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"-style insults, which are just a manifestation of her underlying position -- that is most consequential.

One of the dishonest arguments regarding @IlhanMN and @RepRashida, who we recently found out wrote a piece for a publication of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, is that they are merely being "critical of Israel."

Yet no serious person has ever made the claim that being critical of Israel's policies is anti-Semitic. Israel has had both left-wing and right-wing governments over the years. And like governments in any liberal democracy, they can be corrupt, misguided or incompetent.

Millions of Israelis are critical of their own nation's policies every year without any fear of repercussions. Israel isn't Iran or Turkey, countries that most of Israel's critics never disparage.

But the best way to gauge whether people are merely being critical of Israel's policies or they are being critical of the existence of the Jewish state is to use Natan Sharansky's "3D" test:

1) Do they engage in "delegitimization" of the nation's existence as does every supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement?

2) Do they engage in "demonization" of the country as do people who claim that Israelis hypnotize the world for evil and that they go around murdering children for kicks?

3) Do they engage in "double standards" -- for example, having an obsession with Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee while ignoring illiberalism found throughout the Islamic world and ignoring such things as Muslim concentration camps in China?

The second myth pushed by Omar's defenders is that Israel dictates American foreign policy with its shekels.

The first part of this argument is absurd when one considers that over the past few years, the American government passed the Iranian nuclear deal -- which Israel saw as an existential threat -- and the American president has embraced the idea of withdrawing troops from Syria.

Most of the time, the United States sides with Israel because most of the time Israel's ideals comport with our own.

Then, of course, there's a significant difference between contending that you disagree with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's positions and contending that AIPAC bribes Americans with lots of Benjamins.

For starters, it's a lie, because @AIPAC doesn't give any money to politicians. And as Emily Zanotti and others have pointed out, AIPAC, with all its supernatural ability to hypnotize lawmakers, spends about $3.5M on lobbying for Israeli policies in a good year.

"It barely even cracks the top 50, is dwarfed by the beer wholesalers," Zanotti writes. "In contrast, Planned Parenthood's PAC spent $20M in 2016."

Some of Omar's defenders also engaged in a little whataboutism by pointing out that Republicans have had their own anti-Semitic problems. I'm sure they have. But I hate to break the news to people:

Being critical of billionaire activist George Soros, who happens to be Jewish but holds positions on Israel that are generally in line with Omar's, is not automatically anti-Semitic -- no more than attacking Sheldon Adelson is necessarily anti-Semitic.

Omar's Jewish stereotypes were aimed at all defenders of Israel.

It will be interesting to see how the Dem Party's presidential hopefuls react to Omar's comments. On this issue, there is a big rift opening betwn young and old, this doesn't bode well for the establishment or Jews