Squad’s Success in Moving Democrats on Israel Portends Trouble on Other Issues

During the latest battle between Israel and Hamas, I wrote about how the Democratic Party, which used to be Israel’s greatest defender, has turned against the Jewish state. Even formally strong supporters of Israel, like Senator Chuck Schumer, have been taking a powder, staying silent in the face of criticism of Israel by such far-left, pro-Palestine terrorist-sympathizers as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the so-called Squad.Such figures as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, and Cori Bush have pushed the Democratic Party out of Israel’s camp. Not all Democrats, by any means. The party, though, is not what it was on this issue. It’s the GOP that is now Israel’s great defender.This tectonic political shift was triggered in large part by President Trump. He kept his promise to move our embassy to Jerusalem and led the negotiations that won the Abraham Accords. The Saudis were favorable and might have formally joined were Mr. Trump re-elected. The key point is that the road to peace no longer ran through the Palestinian Authority.Part of this tectonic shift was a clear-eyed understanding by Team Trump that Iran is the enemy in the Middle East, sponsoring terrorism and cheating their way toward nuclear proliferation — and financed by our great friends Russia and China. John Kerry is foolishly driving President Biden toward a new deal with Iran — taking down sanctions, giving them cash, and accepting unenforceable promisesAs the Democrats become the anti-Israel, pro-Iranian party, we’ve had yet another flare-up from the far-left crazies. This time, Ilhan Omar, in a recent House hearing, equated the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban. “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity,” she said. “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”By Wednesday evening a group of 12 House Democrats, many of them Jewish, began to protest Ms. Omar’s mistaken and bigoted statements. They called her comments offensive and xmisguided. Then, later that night, Ms. Omar lashed out at the Democrats, calling “Islamophobic tropes” in their statement “offensive.”By Thursday morning, the other members of the Squad started attacking the 12 concerned Democrats. Ms. Tlaib accused Democrats and Republicans alike of “demonizing” Ms. Omar and called her critics “sick” for “policing” her.Even some in the mainstream press jumped in — MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan accused Democrats of reading Fox News headlines and helping incite hate against Ms. Omar, and Chris Hayes retweeted a message calling the 12 Dems “disgusting” for piling onto “their only colleague wearing a hijab.”While Democrats cowered under the Squad’s attack, Kevin McCarthy and Republicans slammed Speaker Pelosi for failing to say anything to rebut the Squad. On Thursday, Ms. Omar tried to backtrack, saying she really didn’t mean to make a moral comparison between, on the one hand, Hamas and the Taliban, and, on the other hand, America and Israel.For some reason, though, she forgot to post her clarification on her Twitter account, though it has 3 million followers. Then later Thursday, Mrs. Pelosi released a statement from the House leadership team acknowledging that false equivalencies between the U.S. and Israel and terror groups foment prejudice and are harmful. She welcomed Ms. Omar’s clarification, while avoiding criticizing her actions in any way.Still later Thursday, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib moved to keep the back-and-forth going, saying that “freedom of speech doesn’t exist for Muslim women in Congress” and that the Democratic leadership should be ashamed of its “tone policing of Congresswomen of color.” The Congressional Progressive Caucus defended Ms. Omar and the Squad.House Republicans on Friday started calling for Speaker Pelosi to throw Ms. Omar off the Foreign Relations Committee and other committees. Politically this whole episode shows how far left today’s Democratic Party has been pulled by extremists like the Squad who do not represent American values and frankly do not favor America itself.In their mind, America is always wrong, Israel is always wrong, and, of course, Donald Trump is always wrong. Recently President Obama figured out a tortured logic way of blaming Mr. Trump for the outbreak of anti-Semitism. This is a new low even for Mr. Obama.In so many ways, the growing influence of the Squad is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party it could almost bring tears of joy to my eyes. Yet this has a business and economic hook as well because it shows the division in the party — not a small schism, a large one. The so-called progressives along with the Squad and the other crazies on the left are pulling Democrats way far left on taxes and spending and fossil fuels and the Green New Deal as well as critical race theory, cancel culture, and ending history.For our purposes, this leftist extremism will prevent any real compromise on the upcoming budget and infrastructure deals. Republicans are acting in good faith for a responsible, traditional infrastructure bill with no tax hikes. Democrats won’t go there because of the left. They want to punish success, tax rich people, redistribute income and move towards the proverbial Soviet-style, Bulgarian economic model.And, of course, those policies will wreck our economy just like the Soviet model wrecked Eastern Europe and the Cuban model is wrecking Venezuela today. Am I blaming the Squad for all this? Well, yes, because they have become the backbone of the far left. They are insufferable and unstoppable inside the Democratic Party. Indeed they are destroying the Democratic Party. We will not let them destroy America.

Squad’s Success in Moving Democrats on Israel Portends Trouble on Other Issues

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