Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar should be beyond the pale. That they are not speaks volumes about the sad state of America’s Jewish leadership, the Democratic Party, the media, and America itself. Only President Trump gets it right.
On the campaign trail, Tlaib and Omar both claimed to oppose the movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction Israel (BDS).
BDS is an economic weapon launched by enemies seeking Israel’s destruction. Over the past fifteen years, it has become the focal point for global anti-Semitism. The minute Tlaib and Omar arrived in Washington, they became the first two explicit BDS supporters in Congress.
Israel takes BDS anti-Semitism so seriously that it passed a law denying entry to non-citizen BDS activists.
Under that law, neither Omar nor Tlaib should have been able to enter Israel legally — period. Nevertheless, when the lawmakers expressed interest in visiting, the Israeli government set aside its own laws in deference to the U.S.
Rather than joining the large Congressional delegation, however, Tlaib and Omar turned to an organization called Miftah to organize their tour of “Palestine.”
Miftah is clearly anti-Semitic; it has circulated blood libels and endorsed terrorism. For the Tlaib-Omar trip, Miftah compiled an agenda highlighting BDS activism and staging dramas designed to provoke violence and bloodshed.
That agenda posed a dilemma to the Israeli government. Several years ago, during the Obama presidency, Miftah had hosted a similar, if lower profile, tour for five radical Democrats. Given Obama’s general antipathy towards the Jewish State, Israel decided that discretion was the better part of valor and allowed the tour to proceed.
This time, however, President Trump tweeted that he understood the truth about Omar, Tlaib, and their tour. He announced that the U.S. would see it as a sign of strength if Israel showed enough backbone to stand up for itself against foreign agitators — even if those agitators were members of Congress.
Trump’s message was primarily strategic — not political. His 2017 National Security Strategy called for alliances with strong, proud sovereigns. It stated correctly that such allies serve American interests. By cancelling the Tlaib-Omar agitation tour, a strongly sovereign Israel helped President Trump call them out for what they are.
President Trump acted in America’s best interests. He told the world that we recognize the hatemongers in our midst, and we encourage others to treat them as the bigots they are. Once again, all decent Americans — and especially America’s Jews — owe our president a debt of gratitude.
Bruce Abramson is the President of Informationism, Inc., a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, and the founder of the American Restoration Institute. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.