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Less than 24 hours after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) sent out tweets implying that AIPAC pays off American politicians to defend Israel, she had already apologized, in response to a swift rebuke from House Democratic leaders. Just like that.

Her initial remark that Republican attacks on her for criticizing Israel were “all about the Benjamins baby” did not strike me as anti-Semitic (unlike her 2012 tweet on how Israel “hypnotized” the world, which did). It read that way to others, though, which Omar stressed on Monday wasn’t her intention; she thanked “Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes,” such as the notion of powerful Jews using money to get their way that some people thought her tweet played on. Omar did not actually call out Jews, only AIPAC — which does not define itself as a Jewish lobby — but her critics immediately translated it into “Jewish money.” AIPAC even went so far as to send an email Tuesday using Omar to raise money: The message said Omar suggested that the “U.S. government supports Israel only because of Jewish money,” and then proceeded to ask for money.

But the wider frenzy betrayed the cynical ways that charges of anti-Semitism and claims to be standing up for Israel are so often wielded by U.S. politicians — especially, but not exclusively, by Republicans. Israel, and by extension Israelis and American Jews, gets used as a wedge by pretty much anyone who chooses to pick up the cause in service of their own political agendas. The ironic result, for a fight about anti-Semitism, is that Jews are treated simply as a monolithic object, as a group that’s somehow different from other American ethnic or religious minorities.

Some of the loudest voices condemning Omar on Monday have espoused anti-Semitic imagery and stereotypes in the past themselves.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for the chamber to penalize Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for supporting the movement to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. But last October, he tweeted a nefarious-looking image of Jewish liberal billionaire George Soros, saying “we cannot allow” Soros and two other rich Jewish Democrats, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, to “BUY this election!” He deleted the tweet, but never apologized. President Trump, who said Tuesday that Omar should resign from Congress, ran his own ad in 2016 featuring a menacing Soros, along with Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and then-Federal Reserve chair Janet L. Yellen, also both Jewish. He told a gathering of Jewish Republicans in 2015 that “I don’t want your money, so therefore, you’re probably not going to support me,” and “you want to control your own politician.” As president, he told a room full of American Jews at the White House in December that Israel is “your country.” He has yet to apologize for any of that.

To Trump and his allies, though, challenging Israel’s right-wing government is the real anti-Semitism. A slew of organizations, not all of them even run by Jews, push the idea that supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is anti-Semitic — including AIPAC…

Politicians claim to be speaking on behalf of Israelis because they get support from the Israeli right, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its proxies in the United States. Netanyahu helped turn Israel into a wedge issue during the Obama administration, when he all but endorsed Mitt Romney for president and addressed Congress in direct opposition to Obama’s Iran deal. AIPAC, whose ostensible mission is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security” of both nations, by definition makes Israel exceptional. Its lobbying has ensured that Israel receives more foreign aid than any other country and that it remains the strongest military power in the Middle East. But it does so by bolstering the lawmakers that toe that line and ruining the careers of those that don’t.

And by now, many in Washington have come to embrace a consensus that being a good American means supporting Israel — regardless of its human rights violations or democratic record…

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