Biden nominee: Omar displays ‘textbook anti-Semitism’

“She may think she is only criticizing Israel and its policies, but one cannot ignore the fact that she is relying on traditional anti-Semitic tropes to do so,” said Deborah Lipstadt.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Deborah Lipstadt, President Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, once condemned Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) anti-Israel comments as “textbook anti-Semitism,” the Washington Free Beacon reported Friday.

When asked by the Jewish Insider in March 2019 if Omar’s comment about pro-Israel Americans having “allegiance to a foreign country” was “textbook anti-Semitism,” Lipstadt, a Holocaust scholar, said, “Sadly, I believe it is. Dual loyalties is part of the textbook accusations against Jews. They are cosmopolitans, globalists, not loyal to their country or fellow citizens.”

In regard to Omar’s anti-Israel comments, Lipstadt said, “She may think she is only criticizing Israel and its policies, but one cannot ignore the fact that she is relying on traditional anti-Semitic tropes to do so.”

“What it suggests to me is that, at best, these people exist in a place where anti-Semitism is out in the ethosphere; they hear it, breath it in, and don’t even recognize it as anti-Semitism,” she said.

Lipstadt told the Jewish Insider that many people are guilty of “only seeing anti-Semitism on the other side of the political transom.”

“When both sides hate you, that convinces me I must be right,” she said.

In fact, Lipstadt has also been a strong critic of politicians on the right, including President Donald Trump.

In a July 2019 statement to the Washington Post, Lipstadt compared Omar’s statement about Jewish dual loyalty to Trump’s suggestion that Omar and her colleagues should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”

She said that Jews who were upset by Omar’s comments “should be equally outraged by this comment from the president.”

In December 2020, Lipstadt co-authored an anti-Trump op-ed in the Washington Post titled, “Denying the Holocaust Threatens Democracy. So Does Denying the Election Results.”

In September 2020, Lipstadt supported Biden’s comparison of Trump to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, tweeting that the comparison was “historically apt.”

https://twitter.com/deborahlipstadt/status/1311049303683719169

That same month, she defended an ad by the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) comparing Trump and his administration to the Nazi regime.

“I would say in the attacks we’re seeing on the press, the courts, academic institutions, elected officials and even, and most chillingly, the electoral process, that this deserves comparison,” Lindstadt said in a JDCA videoconference.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) issued a statement Friday opposing Biden’s nomination of Lipstadt because of “her statements displaying partisan left-wing bias.”

“Lipstadt’s abuse of false Nazi and anti-Semitism charges against those with whom she disagrees politically should disqualify her from serving as the U.S. combating anti-Semitism envoy,” said the ZOA.

anti-SemitismBiden AdministrationDeborah LipstadtIlhan Omar