Ilhan Omar, AIPAC and the Democrats: Party rushes to defend Israel lobby against one woman

The year is still young, but so far the mainstream media has clearly demonstrated that it remains ill-equipped to recognize obviously bad-faith attacks promulgated by the right-wing. “But Congresswoman Omar’s use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive.” Democratic Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Max Rose, D-N.Y., swiftly slammed Omar' remarks as “deeply hurtful to Jews.” McCarthy, for his part, received very little backlash for a tweet last year accusing Jewish billionaires of trying to “buy” the midterm elections. But too many immediately assumed Omar’s tweet suggested sinister motives for questioning the influence of a lobbying group working to promote Israeli interests in the U.S. Omar has been consistent in her critique on dark money in politics, but for some reason these latest comments -- which never mentioned Israel or the Jewish people -- were immediately treated as anti-Semitic. McCarthy, in a statement, said the GOP would “take action this week to ensure the House speaks out against this hatred.” Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., who previously blamed Omar for inspiring anti-Semites to target his office, has “I see this as an Islamophobic attack against two outspoken women of color who are shaking things up by boldly standing for crucial issues,” Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told The New York Times last month. The uproar over Omar's tweet came on the same day The New Yorker's Ronan Farrow and Adam Entous published a detailed report about a covert Israeli private intelligence company run by former members of Israel’s secret services, which was recently hired to mount "a campaign on behalf of wealthy Jewish-American donors to embarrass and intimidate activists on American college campuses who support a movement to put economic pressure on Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians."