Ilhan Omar joins Black-Jewish Caucus by blasting founding Rep. Lee Zeldin’s ‘bigotry’

You may recall some of Omar’s greatest hits, including accusing Israel of “hypnotiz[ing] the world,” buddying up with Linda Sarsour, insinuating that American Jews hold dual “allegiance” to “a foreign country,” supporting Hamas after it fired 600 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, falsely claiming that there’s an Israeli occupation in Gaza, and backing the boycott, divest, and sanctions movement against Israel (my apologies if I missed anything).

So naturally, Omar’s position in the caucus is farcical. Add to that the fact that she’s rubbing salt in the wound, smearing founding member Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., upon joining the caucus, likely because he’s been outspoken in calling out her anti-Semitism.

In the comment to which Mayer is responding, Sarsour called Zeldin an “anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian bigot.”

Beyond the obvious irony of Omar’s posturing, if she genuinely believes that Zeldin is a racist, why on earth would she join his caucus? A caucus isn’t a debate forum. Impugning someone as a racist isn’t morally tantamount to disagreeing with them on policy. To join Zeldin’s identity-driven caucus is to sign off on him as a person.

I understand Zeldin’s intention. Combating anti-Semitism shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But you can’t just lump together the strain of bigotry faced by black Americans with that faced by Jews. They’re equally reprehensible, but they have very different histories and are entirely different beasts.

For another thing, why don’t Jews just start their own caucus? Why must American Jews, from the watered down House “anti-Semitism” resolution to the erasure of Jews in the D.C. Dyke March, continually be considered as an afterthought to other minorities?

All lives matter-y bigotry only makes anti-Semitism harder to fight. But then again, maybe that’s the point.