The Squad Is Way More Anti-Semitic Than Trump’s Dinner With Ye – The American Spectator

Donald Trump’s dinner last month at Mar-a-Lago with the vile Kanye West, now legally known as “Ye,” and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes has thrust the conversation surrounding anti-Semitism into the national spotlight. Republican lawmakers correctly criticized the get-together, which by most accounts concluded in a heated exchange between Trump and West over the rapper suggesting that the former president join the presidential ticket as his running mate. For their part, Democrat denouncements over the affair included White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre affirming in a Nov. 28 press conference that “this administration, this President totally rejects bigotry, racism, antisemitism.” That same day, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke on the Senate floor and condemned Trump’s decision to “meet with this antisemite.” The disturbing language used by West reflects the hateful ideology espoused by anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who was featured in a suppressed 2005 photograph alongside a beaming then–Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, which surfaced following Obama’s presidency. Schumer’s curious omission of West from his statement marks cowardice in denouncing anti-Semitism if it conflicts with the progressives’ preferred white-nationalist narrative. 

The evolving criticism over Trump’s unfortunate meeting highlights how liberals are successfully manipulating the dialogue involving anti-Semitism to distract from the Democrats’ embrace of progressive Jew-haters, with whom they frequently dine, praise, and elevate to influential government positions. 

One day following Jean-Pierre’s comments, anti-Semitic “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted her “delight to root for #TeamUSA” after attending the World Cup in Qatar, where she was part of a small delegation accompanying U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Omar currently serves as vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. The congresswoman, and a growing number of Democrats, display their hatred of Jews by attacking Israel. Omar recently cosponsored an anti-Israel House resolution, introduced by Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), that calls for the U.S. to use the term “Nakba,” defined as “catastrophe,” when discussing the creation of the state of Israel. It bears mentioning that New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, another co-sponsor of the “Nakba” measure, received Schumer’s endorsement during the last election. 

Blinken’s invitation to Omar was extended despite the congresswoman’s questionable associations with Qatari officials. In 2019, a witness confirmed to the Jerusalem Post that Omar was “recruited by a foreign government, received funding from a foreign government, and passed sensitive information through intermediaries to Iran.” Kuwait-born Canadian businessman Alan Bender made the allegations during a trial involving the Qatari emir’s brother. According to testimony, Omar was the “crown jewel” of U.S. politicians and used her position to recruit other like-minded lawmakers. Omar denied the accusations and predictably disparaged her detractors as “Islamophobes.” Employing a similar tactic, Omar is currently attempting to fend off House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s justified threat to fulfill his promise of removing her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee should he become the House majority leader. 

Omar’s trip to Qatar underscores liberal comfort with promoting the political stature of anti-Semites. Serving as a portent of the party’s ideological intent, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi posed with anti-Israel members of Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Omar, on a 2019 Rolling Stone cover titled “Women Shaping the Future.” Last year, Omar equated the actions of the U.S. and Israel to that of terrorist groups like the Taliban. Her colleague Tlaib once called for the destruction of the world’s sole Jewish homeland in a since-deleted 2020 tweet. In 2021, President Joe Biden gushed over Tlaib while visiting Michigan and expressed his admiration for the lawmaker’s “intellect.”  

The trafficking of anti-Semitism by Democrats is having a deleterious effect on U.S. policy toward Israel and Jewish Americans. As “moderate” congressional Democrats such as Ted Deutch retire, other policymakers, including New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, are increasingly sidelined. The controversial lobbying group J Street, which featured Blinken as its headliner this week, basked in its endorsements’ electoral success. It witnessed victories by candidates like Pennsylvania Rep.-elect Summer Lee, whose campaign received a boost following an October fundraiser held by her future Squad comrades. At universities, assaults against Jewish students occur under the anti-Zionist umbrella, with leftists leaving Jewish youth unwarrantedly exposed to its deceitful smearing of Israel as an “apartheid” state. The AMCHA Initiative, an organization investigating and combating campus anti-Semitism, revealed in its report this year that attacks involving Jewish identity on campus jumped 100 to 200 percent in the academic year following Israel’s 2021 war with Hamas. The study notes that the presence of Israel-hate groups on campus more than doubled the likelihood that a campus would play host to anti-Semitic activity.

Democrats’ dubious outrage over Trump’s behavior is evidenced by years of boosting anti-Semites into government echelons. The party’s underwriting of anti-Semitic politicians is a far more potent threat to U.S. Jews than one mistaken meal at Mar-a-Lago. 

 Irit Tratt is a writer who resides in New York. Her work has appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the Algemeiner, JNS, and Israel Hayom.