Wrong On Omar

In your editorial “Omar’s Misinformed Tweets” (Feb. 15), The Jewish Week once again prevaricates, vacillates and refuses to take a no-holds-barred stand against anti-Semitism as espoused by Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib or Bronx-Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You refer to Omar’s “misinformed” tweets, which only “suggested” that Jewish money was what drove support for Israel in her metaphors or tropes. You further seem to minimize her anti-Semitic remarks by giving credence to her thinly disguised retreat, claiming it was only directed at AIPAC by stating that “for better or worse, that’s the way the political game is played.” As for Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez you say almost nothing at all.

No matter that Tlaib has written for Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic newsletter Final Call in 2006, or that she penned a trope (a term that in itself minimizes the offensive tweet) accusing members of Congress of dual loyalties when it comes to Israel. Ocasio-Cortez, who has also backed away from her statement in May 2018 suggesting that IDF soldiers were murderers, gets no attention within your editorial. What does is the Democratic Party. You claim that “Israel’s security remains a fundamental value of the Democratic Party”? Really? How then to explain that in the recent vote on “The Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act”, 23 Democrats voted against it and of the seven Senate Democrats who have declared for the presidency, including Kirstin Gillibrand, six voted no! Has this become the anti-Zionist party of [former Minnesota Rep.] Keith Ellison? Perhaps so.

As the flag bearer of responsible Jewish journalism, it is incumbent upon The Jewish Week to be particularly forceful and unrelenting in calling out and addressing anti-Semitism in all its forms. Unfortunately, you dropped the ball in this editorial.

SUNY Professor of History and Philosophy Glen Cove, L.I.