AOC Excuses Omar's Anti-Semitism; Pelosi Backs Down

House Democrats were all set to vote on a resolution tomorrow condemning anti-Semitism prompted by a series of anti-Semitic statements made by Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, but now that vote has been delayed until at least Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The resolution is likely to be watered down to include language pertaining to Islamophobia.

For this we can thank Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who rushed to her fellow freshman's defense in a series of Tweets beginning with this one:

It’s not my position to tell people how to feel, or that their hurt is invalid. But incidents like these do beg the question: where are the resolutions against homophobic statements? For anti-blackness? For xenophobia? For a member saying he’ll “send Obama home to Kenya?”

So because Congress might not see fit to condemn homophobia or xenophobia therefore we mustn't condemn anti-Semitism.

This is a cop out.

It is an attempt to minimize anti-Semitism and to absolve Omar from responsibility for her repeated defamation of Jews. Evidently Pelosi is going to let someone who has been in elected office for all of two months run the show. At this point, AOC has no reason to believe otherwise:

I often think about how I work with white or male allies when they say something insensitive. The 1st thing I do is pull them aside + say “hey, you may not be aware of X thing regarding Latinx people, but here is the history and it’s hurtful. If you want to learn more, read Y.”

If AOC talked that way to me I would say, "Hey, you might not be aware that when you spoke with Jeremy Corbyn over that 85% of British Jews think Corbyn is an anti-Semite. If you want to learn more, please give Britain's former chief rabbi a ring."

Somehow I don't think she would be so receptive to that message. 

Britain's Labour Party used to be the political home of Jews. That is until Jeremy Corbyn came along.

I have a bad feeling that in the not so distant future we will say, "The Democratic Party used to be the political home of American Jews. That is until Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came along."