Letters to the Editor October 6, 2021: Harris's harrowing non-response

• Author: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
• Published date: 05 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi excused Representative Ilhan Omar's intolerable pattern of antisemitic pronouncements by asserting absurdly that, "[Omar] has a different experience in use of words. [She] doesn't realize that some of them are fraught with meaning that she didn't realize."

There has been scant criticism of Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her close ties to unrepentant antisemite Louis Farrakhan. Nor have the Democrats censured her for anti-Israel libels such as, "Israel is a racist state and they [the Jews] would deny Palestinians, like my grandmother, access to a vaccine."

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly defended Omar and Tlaib, and has compared migrant facilities at the US-Mexico border to "concentration camps"– a form of Holocaust trivialization/denial.

Most recently, these three were joined by six other Representatives in temporarily blocking Iron Dome funding because they "oppose war crimes against Palestinians," implying that this purely defensive system was responsible for Palestinian deaths. In reality, they seem offended that more Jews aren't being murdered. The fact that Congress overwhelmingly restored the funding a few days later was a welcome if temporary respite from the progressives' attacks.

Many Democrats support the BDS movement and enthusiastically support Black Lives Matter founders with a record of antisemitism and close ties to terrorist Linda Sarsour.

And now Harris nods in apparent agreement as a college student accuses Israel of "ethnic genocide." She then responded, "Your voice, your perspective… your truth should not be suppressed." It took Harris two full days to backtrack on her silence in the face of this slander, and then only by means of a statement from her office rather than by a personal mea culpa.

While some American Jewish organizations, especially those on the Left, gladly accepted Harris's apology, it was too little too late. A person's true feelings often are most evident in their immediate reactions. Here, Harris's instinct was to nod in agreement. Perhaps in that moment she decided to avoid offending the Democratic Party's far-left supporters, confident that the majority of Jews would continue to vote for her party as they have in the past. If that was her calculation, it is fair to wonder what future anti-Israel or antisemitic statements and policies she might be willing to champion for political gain.

EFRAIM COHEN

Zichron Yaakov

Vice President Kamala Harris was not the first US public figure to offer no rebuke when Israel was the victim of vicious slander.

In 1999, Hillary Clinton, then First Lady and presumed NY senatorial candidate, listened silently as Palestinian health care officials accused Israel of contaminating Palestinian water and air. The venom continued as Suha Arafat, wife of former PA head Yasser Arafat, argued that the Israeli military regularly used carcinogenic crowd-control gases in Gaza and the West Bank, leading to an increase in cancer cases among women and children. Clinton said nothing and even kissed Ms. Arafat on the cheek as she concluded her lies and baseless charges.

Only later did Clinton engage in damage control and denounce the accusations that were targeted at Israel. Considering the fact that she had a reasonably successful career – US Senator, secretary of state, presidential candidate – she was not in any way penalized...