MSNBC may have been trying for a share of the Babylon Bee’s market on Sunday when its host Mehdi Hasan featured a discussion of one of the burning issues of our time, Donald Trump’s alleged anti-Semitism. Hasan claimed to have discovered anti-Semitism in the most pro-Israel president in American history’s recent statement that “Jews need to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it’s too late.”
To discuss this latest atrocity from the hated Trump, Hasan had on a congresswoman who piously intoned: “The former President knowingly, repeatedly invokes dual loyalty tropes that are harmful and dangerous. … Anti-Semitism is on the rise and all of us have a responsibility to condemn it.” This congresswoman knows all about anti-Semitism, for she has a long record of it herself: Hasan brought on none other than Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Benjamins).
“The former President knowingly, repeatedly invokes dual loyalty tropes that are harmful and dangerous. … Anti-Semitism is on the rise and all of us have a responsibility to condemn it," @IlhanMN says to @MehdiRHasan in reaction to Donald Trump's latest bigotry. pic.twitter.com/HIzaNPCE6C
— The Mehdi Hasan Show (@MehdiHasanShow) October 17, 2022
Increasing the oddity of the whole affair is the fact that Trump’s statement isn’t really anti-Semitic. Am I anti-American if I say that Americans need to get their act together and appreciate what they have in the U.S. before it’s too late? But Hasan and Omar steadfastly pretended that Trump was not only egregiously anti-Semitic but that he had unjustly tarred Omar with the label: “You have been demonized in recent years as an antisemite by many,” Hasan told Omar, “especially by Donald Trump and the GOP over your criticisms of Israel and of Jewish groups’ support of Israel, some of which you have regretted and apologized for, that you should have been more careful with some of your language in the past.”
Was that all it was? Criticism of Israel? Omar tweeted back in 2012: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She famously claimed in Feb. 2019 that support for Israel in the United States was “all about the Benjamins baby” and charged that the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee paid American politicians to support Israel.
That was too much even for the House Democrat leadership, which issued a statement entitled “Democratic Leadership Statement on Anti-Semitic Comments of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.” It stated that “Legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies is protected by the values of free speech and democratic debate that the United States and Israel share. But Congresswoman Omar’s use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive. We condemn these remarks and we call upon Congresswoman Omar to immediately apologize for these hurtful comments.”
Omar did apologize at that time, but she didn’t change. On June 7, 2021, she even equated the U.S. and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban, tweeting: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked [Secretary of State Antony Blinken] where people are supposed to go for justice.” She equated the United States and Israel, both of which go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties, with jihad terror groups that target civilians and use them as human shields.
Related: The Unmitigated Gall of Ilhan Omar
Mehdi Hasan himself is little better. He is a hate-filled Leftist who back in February came under fire for remarks he made in 2009, including this about atheists: “In this respect the Koran describes the atheist as cattle. As cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.” The Qur’an does indeed say: “Already we have created many of the jinn and mankind for Gehenna, having hearts with which they do not understand, and having eyes with which they do not see, and having ears with which they do not hear. They are like cattle, no, they are worse. These are the neglectful” (7:179).
In criticizing the Sunni caliph Yazid, the Shi’ite Hasan supplied an interesting list of moral deviants, including not just pedophiles but dog lovers and music lovers: “All of these ulama unanimously agree that at the very minimum if Yazid was not a Kaffir — then at the very minimum he was a fasiq, a transgressor, a breaker of Islamic laws, a corrupt individual, a tyrant, a killer, a drunkard, a dog lover, a music lover, a homosexual, a pedophile, a sexual deviant, someone who slept with his own mother.”
These are the paragons who are skewering Trump on MSNBC. And then some people actually wonder why its ratings are plummeting.
