ILHAN OMAR’S MEDIA COLLABORATORS: With the help of willing collaborators in the media, Omar and her supporters have managed to turn her antisemitic comments about Jews buying Congress’ loyalty to Israel into a referendum on the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. So much so that the New York Times has this headline today:  “Ilhan Omar’s Criticism Raises the Question: Is Aipac Too Powerful?”

Let’s pause to recall what actually happened, as detailed here.  Key lines:

The context of the controversy, in other words, was not a debate about a specific Israeli policy, nor about the general influence of AIPAC, but about a leading Republican calling out two leftist Democrats for comments that were widely perceived to be anti-Semitic, and for which one of the Democrats had already apologized.

So the anti-Semitic implications of Omar’s initial tweet are rather clear: ‘[House Minority Leader] McCarthy isn’t criticizing me because it’s an obvious political move for a Republican to criticize anti-Semitism among Democrats, but because he’s been bought off by Jewish money. And, moreover, that calling out anti-Semitism in this particular context constitutes loyalty to a foreign country.’

She then tried to save herself by suggesting that she wasn’t referring to Jewish money in general, but specifically to AIPAC, the leading pro-Israel lobby group [which, btw, does not donate money to candidates]. And in fact she partially succeeded in redirecting the debate to one over AIPAC’s influence.

Meanwhile, next up in the Times: Northam’s KKK Costume Raises the Question: Was Lynching Really So Bad?