Jewish leaders are up in arms again about the overt antisemitism of Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. The latest furor relates to Tlaib’s Sunday retweet of an ancient “blood libel” claim that Jews murdered a Palestinian child in Jerusalem. In fact, the child died of accidental drowning in a reservoir swollen by recent rainstorms. Jewish rescue workers valiantly tried to save him.
The author of the original tweet was Hanan Ashwari, founder of an organization called Miftah that is partly funded by Congress and the Ford Foundation. The Washington Post and New York Times refer to Ashwari as a “peace negotiator” when in fact Miftah has a history of publishing blood libel and other antisemitic claims, including an American neo-Nazi treatise. Miftah has also publicly praised suicide bombers.
Ashwari has since deleted and apologized for her false tweet. Tlaib deleted her retweet of Ashwari’s false claim, but so far has refused to acquiesce to demands from Jewish leaders that she apologize.
“@RashidaTlaib retweets a vicious lie steeped in centuries-old accusations used to demonize Jews, then says nothing when it’s disproven,” said Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “An apology is overdue.”
Greenblatt is mistaken demanding that Tlaib apologize, as it would create the false impression that she genuinely regrets promoting hate speech against Jews. An honorable Congress member would be horrified promoting an obscene lie but thanks to President Trump there is no longer any shame in tweeting falsehoods. What’s different is the media holds Trump accountable for his falsehoods but gives Tlaib and Illan Omar, her antisemitic Congressional colleague, free passes for theirs.
As of this writing, only Israeli and Jewish news outlets and a handful of conservative publications have covered Tlaib’s blood libel tweets. The anti-Trump media has ignored the furor, as have Tlaib’s hometown publications, Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. The silence is what enables Tlaib and Omar to continuously promote antisemitism with abandon.
Miftah was the organization that organized Tlaib’s and Omar’s planned trip to Israel, which the country ultimately denied. Here’s a sample of the sort of “peace” Miftah has promoted on its website, as retrieved by Vox’s Jane Coastan.
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.
Omar, voted “2019 Antisemite of the Year” by a Jewish advocacy group, also is a known teller of falsehoods. The Congresswoman told a group of 400 suburban Minneapolis students about once encountering a “sweet, old …African American lady” who had been arrested for stealing a $2 loaf of bread to feed her “starving 5-year-old granddaughter.” The Washington Post said this story is false or embellished. Minneapolis police don’t arrest people for shoplifting unless there’s a likelihood of violence or further crime.
Omar’s comments that “some people did something” on 9/11 was made in an address to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Washington Post and other media characterized CAIR as a “civil liberties group.” According to a 2006 report by Daniel Pipes, who the Post called “perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam,” CAIR maintained ties with terrorist organizations, and that at least five CAIR employees and board members were arrested, convicted, deported, or otherwise linked to terrorism-related charges and activities.
Demanding apologies from antisemites is a futile exercise. Miftah has previously apologized for some of its posts but continues spreading ancient smears against Jews. Omar and Tlaib have apologized for earlier antisemitic comments, but the apologies were hollow. Omar and Tlaib were among the four Congresswomen who supported economic sanctions against Israel, yet Omar declared economic sanctions against Iran “economic warfare” that unfairly penalizes that country’s citizens.
Tlaib’s blood libel retweet came one day before the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. On Monday world leaders commemorated the event and voiced concern about the rise of antisemitism across the globe.
“Our duty is to fight anti-Semitism, racism, and fascist nostalgia – those sick evils,” said Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president. Major promoters of those evils are Tlaib and Omar and an organization funded by U.S. taxpayers. As they were during the rise of Hitler, the American media cares little about the surging violence against Jews and the hate speech of two elected officials who want to unleash a wave of antisemitism the likes this country has never seen or imagined.