In thinking about the aborted visit to Israel by Reps. Omar and Tlaib, it’s helpful to know who organized the trip. The trip was planned by an outfit called Miftah.
Miftah is an anti-Semitic organization. It promotes hatred of Jews and celebrates the terrorists who massacre them. No surprise, then, that Omar and Tlaib chose Miftah to plan their trip.
The most egregious manifestation of Miftah’s anti-Semitism was its publication of the age-old “blood libel” against Jews — the claim that we slay Christians and use their blood in our matzah. When called out for purveying this libel, Miftah pushed back, arguing that the article in question only “briefly addressed” the blood libel.
Eventually, though, Miftah issued a complete apology. Thus, if this were the only example of the group’s anti-Semitism, one might be able to write it off (though considering how vile a lie this is, I wouldn’t be inclined to).
But there are other serious instances. David French of National Review recounts some of them.
Here’s one:
[Miftah] published an American neo-Nazi treatise called “Who Rules America: The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken” (archived here).
As Vox’s Jane Coaston explained, “the original source was National Vanguard, a neo-Nazi group founded in 2005 in Charlottesville by members of the National Alliance.” The National Alliance “was for a time the best financed and best organized white nationalist group in America.” And to give you a sense of its ideology, here are two paragraphs from the treatise:
The Jew-controlled entertainment media have taken the lead in persuading a whole generation that homosexuality is a normal and acceptable way of life; that there is nothing at all wrong with White women dating or marrying Black men, or with White men marrying Asian women; that all races are inherently equal in ability and character — except that the character of the White race is suspect because of a history of oppressing other races; and that any effort by Whites at racial self-preservation is reprehensible.
We must oppose the further spreading of this poison among our people, and we must break the power of those who are spreading it. It would be intolerable for such power to be in the hands of any alien minority, with values and interests different from our own. But to permit the Jews, with their 3,000-year history of nation-wrecking, from ancient Egypt to Russia, to hold such power over us is tantamount to race suicide. Indeed, the fact that so many White Americans today are so filled with a sense of racial guilt and self-hatred that they actively seek the death of their own race is a deliberate consequence of Jewish media control.
As for terrorism against Jews, Miftah heartily approves:
The group celebrates terrorists, including an evil woman who helped murder 13 Israeli children. In an article titled “Let Us Honor Our Own,” a Miftah contributor describes Dalal Al Mughrabi as “a Palestinian fighter who was killed during a military operation against Israel in 1978” and as one of the Palestinian people’s “national heroes.”
The so-called “military operation” is more widely known as the “Coastal Road Massacre,” a bus hijacking that resulted in the deaths of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children.
Al Mughrabi is hardly the only terrorist Miftah celebrates. It described female suicide bomber Wafa Idrees as the “the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause.” It singles out for recognition Hanadi Jaradat, a woman who blew herself up in a restaurant, killing 21 people (including four children).
Rep. Omar has noted that in 2016, Miftah sponsored the trip to Israel of “five male Democratic members” of Congress. Israel permitted the visit. Politico makes the same point in an article dripping with bias against Israel.
Note Omar’s reference to “male” Democrats. Since some of these members were minorities (Hank Johnson and Luis Gutierrez), Omar couldn’t play the race card here. Thus, she played the gender card with her pointed reference to her colleagues as “male.”
But here’s the thing: In 2016, the law against visits by those advocating a boycott — the law cited by the Israeli government as the basis for excluding Omar and Tlaib — did not exist. It was enacted a year latter. Nor, as far as I can tell from Politico’s report and this account in the Washington Examiner, did the five male members use their visit to promote a boycott against Israel (though I’m not certain that they didn’t).
Miftah’s sponsorship of the Omar-Tlaib trip and the stated intent of the two congresswomen to promote a boycott of Israel, coupled with the new law barring visits promoting boycotts, provide ample justification for Israel’s decision to keep the two out. Indeed, Israel might want to rethink allowing visits sponsored by Miftah, boycotts aside. Arguably, Israel owes that much to the victims of the terrorists Miftah celebrates.
Israel, though, is a liberal democracy. It tolerates a great deal of venom from those who want to destroy the Jewish state.
But its tolerance has limits. Omar and Tlaib exceeded them.
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