Quick Take: Antisemitism Under the Dome
Two members of Congress desecrate the US Capitol
It was the kind of thing to be expected from Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan: To mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Israel, and at a moment when the Jewish state is under rocket attack by a genocidal Palestinian nationalist group, she thought she’d stage an observation of the “Nakba” (catastrophe). That’s how the Palestinian Arabs and their various sympathizers regard the founding of Israel, and their feelings include a fervent wish that the Jewish state should be bloodily wiped from the map.
If you’ve ever wondered why the decades-long Mideast “peace process” has produced no peace, there’s your answer.
Tlaib planned to stage her Jew-bashing event in the United States Capitol, the seat of American government and democracy: an outrage rivaling the disgrace of January 6, 2021. To his credit, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy scotched the idea. “It’s wrong for members of Congress to traffic in anti-Semitic tropes about Israel,” he told the Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon, who broke the story. “As long as I’m Speaker, we are going to support Israel’s right to self-determination and self-defense, unequivocally and in a bipartisan fashion.”
But unfortunately, there was a certain United States senator who agreed with Tlaib that observing the Nakba was an excellent idea: none other than Bernie Sanders. He offered to chair a meeting in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Hearing Room, letting it be used as a venue for Tlaib’s little Nuremburg Rally. It seems that under the rules of the Senate, nothing could be done to stop this, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is said to have been blindsided by Sanders’ initiative. He has not, however, had anything to say about it. Nor has any other Democratic senator, with the singular exception of Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, who called the event, which was held on May 10, “deeply offensive.”
Schumer, who like Sanders is a Jew, professes himself to be a staunch Zionist and supporter of Israel. Why, then, has he had nothing to say about this disgraceful business? Why have other congressional Democrats remained mute? With Bernie Sanders’ collusion, Rashida Tlaib staged an ugly racist demonstration under the Capitol Dome. She may have had the right to do so, but she has no right to claim immunity from condemnation. Her fellow Democrats, however, seem to have trouble finding their voices.
Tlaib’s hateful antisemitism is all the more to be deplored because it’s so futile. She may rant and rave, but Israel is not going to liquidate itself to please her. Other Arab countries have made it clear, by their actions if not in so many words, that they have no intention of going to war with Israel for the sake of their Palestinian brethren. That’s been tried several times, with bad results; enough is enough. Of course there’s always Iran; perhaps Tlaib is counting on the Islamic Republic to eradicate the Jewish state. But that’s not going to happen either. And on the bottom line, the losers in all this are the very people she purports to champion, her fellow Palestinian Arabs.
The Palestinian people languish in wretchedness because Palestinian nationalism is poisoned by genocidal fantasies. With her hymn of hate, Rashida Tlaib is encouraging those fantasies and prolonging a generational Nakba. Her pusillanimous Democratic congressional colleagues might pause to think about that.
Outrageous