This shows the extent to which open anti-Semitism has become mainstream and normalized on the Left today.

In fact, it is likely that Ilhan Omar’s paranoid hatred of Israel, rooted in Islamic anti-Semitism, made her a good candidate for this position in the eyes of Democrat leaders, who have been following a consistent anti-Israel line for years.

“House Democrats reward an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist with a place on the Foreign Affairs Committee,” by Tiana Lowe, Washington Examiner, January 17, 2019:

Lost in the incomprehensible word salad of the freewheeling, Trumpian, and mathematically illiterate performance of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on CNN today was the more ominous fact that the Democratic Party rewarded her, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, with a place on the prestigious House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Omar, who replaced accused domestic abuser Keith Ellison in Congress, is no run-of-the-mill Democrat. She openly supports the boycott, divest, and sanction movement against Israel. She cozied up to Farrakhan fan Linda Sarsour on the day she entered Congress. But most damning is a tweet from 2012, in which she invokes a classic anti-Semitic trope.

“Israel has hypnotized the world,” wrote Omar in the now hotly contested tweet. “May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel.”

Omar has conducted two interviews in the last 24 hours, in which she was given opportunities to explain the tweet. To Christiane Amanpour, Omar called the language “unfortunate,” claiming that they were “the only words” she could think of to describe Israel’s 2012 airstrike offensive in Gaza. To Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, she said, “I don’t know how my comments could be offensive to Jewish-Americans.”

I could think of a few ways. For one thing, painting Israel as a nefarious Jewish cabal spreading its tentacles around the globe doesn’t do much to curb the idea that emphatic critics of Israel simply opposed the government and not the people. But more significantly, Omar had seven years to think of an answer, an explanation, or even straight-up lie about a political evolution in order to save face. The best she could come up with was little more than a shrug.

Even worse is that Democrats aren’t just refusing to condemn her for this — they are also giving her a prestigious committee seat that could have gone to someone who hates Jews a lot less….

Article posted with permission from Robert Spencer