NY Times Praises Ilhan Omar’s Book While Glossing Over Her Antisemitism

A recent New York Times book review boosts Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) autobiography while glossing over her antisemitism. In the paper’s Aug. 16, 2020 edition, NYT reporter Christina Cauterucci writes:

The memoir offers breathing room for Omar, who has been the target of racist attacks and whose history-making tenure in Congress has been marked by disputes with colleagues, especially over their support for Israel, in the claustrophobic confines of Twitter threads. Her efforts to deter further outrage are evident throughout the book, which barely touches topics that have inflamed her critics… But, with unrepentant recollections of schoolyard brawls with bullies, Omar bolsters her image as a scrapper constitutionally incapable of backing down. “Fighting didn’t feel like a choice,” she writes. “It was a part of me.”

Yet Omar supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As CAMERA has noted, “BDS seeks the end of the Jewish state, singles out Israel for opprobrium, has been declared antisemitic by various legislative bodies, and is endorsed by terrorist organizations like Hamas.”

Ilhan Omar’s problems with Jews and Israel

• In July 2020, an Omar campaign mailer accused her congressional opponent of being “in the pocket of Wall Street” and mentions three Jewish donors by name. The mailer references only the three donors, plus “Michael, a donor from Scarsdale, New York.” This echoes the anti-Semitic trope that Jews exercise excessive political influence through use of outsize wealth.

• In February 2019, Omar employed the anti-Semitic dual loyalty trope while referring to American Jewish supporters of Israel: “[There is] the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

• In February 2019 Omar tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby!” in response to a report about AIPAC, a pro-Israel organization. Omar’s tweet echoed a longstanding anti-Semitic trope — the implication that Jewish political influence operates entirely (“all about”) through money as well as the implication that Jews exercise undue political influence. The tweet refers to the fact that a representation of Benjamin Franklin is on the $100 bill, the largest U.S. dollar bill in circulation.

• In March 2019 Omar stated: “some people [who] did something” — in describing the Islamist terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

• In a November 2012 tweet, Omar accused Israel of “hypnotizing the world,” while insinuating that her fellow lawmakers are purchased by Jewish money, and that the Jewish Americans among them have dual loyalties. Her comments meet the widely accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, used by the U.S. State Department and others.

The Times, of course, has had its problems with Jews and Israel as has been chronicled by CAMERA since 1992. A recent example involves the Times repeatedly turning to the radical Peter Beinart’s advocacy for dissolving the Jewish state.

Another recent example involves the newspaper’s erroneous claim that that there had been a “longstanding American policy treating the settlements as illegal,” which remained in place until Secretary of State Pompeo announced a reversal in 2019. The newspaper is aware of the error but has refused to correct or put forward a defense for its claim.

Perhaps particularly shameful is the newspaper’s record during the early to middle part of the previous century when it buried news about the Holocaust.

It should not come as a surprise that the New York Times glosses over Ilhan Omar’s problems with Jews and Israel.