Ilhan Omar Is Not Antisemitic.
Being Anti-Israel is Not Antisemitic
Ilhan hates Israel.
That doesn’t make her an Anti-Semite.
Kevin McCarthy wants to kick Ilhan Omar out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
He and his fellow right-wingers accuse Ilhan of being antisemitic. What is the proof of her antisemitism?
Her unrelenting criticism of Israel. That is it. Ilhan is antisemitic because she constantly criticizes Israel. And it is not just Republican politicians and other right-wingers accusing her of being antisemitic for criticizing Israel.
Even liberals like the Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer accuse her of being antisemite for her harsh criticism of Israel.
Many liberal Jewish groups regularly label her antisemite.
In fact, in 2019, The liberal Jewish activist group Stop Antisemitism named Ilhan “The Antisemite of the Year. And almost all of the reasons they gave for naming her as such revolved around her criticism of Israel. These reasons included:
Accusing Israel of having hypnotized the world; supporting Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, and submitting a resolution in the House of Representatives comparing boycotting Israel to boycotting the Nazis.
But criticizing Israel is not antisemitic. Israel is a nation. It is not an ethnicity. Yes, Israel is a Jewish-ruled nation. But that doesn’t mean it is synonymous with Jewishness. Just like criticizing Nigeria is not anti-Black, criticizing Israel is not anti-Jewish. It is not antisemitic.
Of course, I know a lot of criticism of Israel comes from antisemitism. But criticizing Israel in and of itself is not antisemitic.
Hating Israel is not antisemitic. You can hate and oppose Israel without being antisemitic.
What is interesting is that a lot of Jews tell you that equating Jewishness with Israel is a form of antisemitism called “Dual Loyalty”. But then they turn around and tell you that if you criticize Israel, you are attacking Jewishness.
I mean when Stop Antisemitism named Ilhan “The Antisemite of the Year”, they both accused her of being antisemite for using the “Dual Loyalty” trope AND being antisemite for criticizing Israel. In other words, it is antisemitic to criticize Israel because Israel and Jewishness are one and the same. It is also antisemitic to imply Israel and Jewishness are one and the same.
Ilhan is a Black Muslim. She is identifiable Black and she is identifiable Muslim. It is not a wonder why she attracts so much vitriol from right-wingers.
Also, it is telling that the people who are accusing Ilhan of being antisemite are some of the most antisemitic people. Margie Greene is one of the Republican politicians who wants Ilhan off the committee because of her “antisemitism”.
But Margie is the same woman with a long documented history of antisemitism. She regularly compares vaccine and mask mandates to the Holocaust.
She once bizarrely claimed the Rothschild cabal was creating space laser that is causing wildfires in California. Of course, we know what the Rothschild cabal is a dog-whistle word for.
With all her antisemitism, however, Margie has never earned the epithet “The Antisemite of the Year”.
On January 24, 2023, this essay by My Lovely Suque, appeared on Medium.com. A service I subscribe to.
