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But McCarthy managed to sink even below those very low standards of propriety that ought to be in force among congressional leaders. He did more than grovel in the way that politicians often practice their art. He decided to punish members of the Foreign Relations Committee for criticizing a foreign government, about which McCarthy feels impelled—for his own advantage—to say only nice things.

BY PAUL GOTTFRIED

For once in my life, I’m on the side of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Despite this lady’s expressions of loathing for the white Christian West and for the country that gave her asylum and masochistically elevated her to a congressional seat, I stand with Ilhan against Kevin McCarthy, who (God help us!) may be the new Republican Speaker of the House.

McCarthy, in a well-publicized oration at a Jewish Republican conference in Las Vegas last month, stated his intention to remove Congresswoman Omar from her position on the House Foreign Relations Committee. McCarthy planned to take this radical step because Omar had rashly criticized Israel in public statements. She claimed that Israel had “hypnotized the world” and that, given the treatment of the occupied West Bank by the Israeli government, boycotting Israel is like “boycotting Nazi Germany.”

Allow me to say the obvious here: I do not agree with Omar’s over-the-top attack on the Israelis and find her comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany breathtakingly inappropriate. Given the source, however, I am not surprised by Omar’s less than carefully considered statements. The “anti-Semitic” comments she made last year, for which McCarthy also intends to punish her, seem somewhat blander than her later statements.

Omar’s earlier charge that the Israel lobby bribes politicians with “Benjamins” may in fact be a crude way of telling us the truth. Although Omar may have chosen her words more thoughtfully, she is right that there is an Israeli lobby and Zionist donors in the U.S. who will act in accordance with what they—correctly or incorrectly—perceive as Israeli interests. I don’t think these defenders and promoters always represent Israel’s interests accurately or that they act in all cases on instruction from Israeli leaders. But they do try to isolate critics of Israel in the U.S. McCarthy is acting in such a way that he seems to be doing this lobby’s bidding with slavish obedience.     

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