Watching the utter disaster that unfolded when congressional leaders suggested making a simple, full-throated condemnation of anti-Semitism this month, I tried to think of something less surprising. I couldn't. This began badly for the Jews; it ended badly for the Jews; and in the middle was a whole heaping pile of bad for the Jews. The irony was that the resolution wound up rebutting anyone who sees shadowy forces directing Washington. Far from controlling the conversation, Jews are powerless to stop it.
After freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made the latest in a series of anti-Semitic statements, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had essentially no choice other than to put forth a resolution decrying the kind of rhetoric Omar has been spouting — that Jews are disloyal to America by pushing an allegiance to Israel over the United States. Democrats rebelled. In caucus meetings, Pelosi was ignored. The party finally put forth an All Lives Matter-style resolution crafted to imply that white-supremacy was the reason they were doing this at all, by expanding the language to include condemnations of Islamophobia as well as hatred of African Americans, Latinos, Hindus, Sikhs, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, immigrants, other people of color and LGBT people.
Even for Washington, the cynicism was breathtaking.
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