New York Times op-ed writer and Australia enthusiast Bari Weiss made an appearance on The View today, in which she insisted that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic while criticizing Israel’s actions isn’t, and then proceeded to take host Meghan McCain’s bait to bash Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
After Weiss waxed poetic about how she thought the U.S. was a safe haven from anti-Semitism until the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting last year, she said that one criticism of Jews from the “far-right” is that they aren’t “white or Christian enough,” before Meghan McCain inexplicably asked her to say “alt-right” instead. (Who, exactly, are we worried about offending on the far-right?) And because Weiss is a broken record about identity politics, she did the both sides thing, accusing the far-left of believing Jews aren’t “victim enough.”
Joy Behar then went on to ask Weiss if anti-Semitism on the left was “mostly coming from Muslims” (?????!!!!), to which Weiss said that criticism comes from people who “try and claim that their criticism is just about the state of Israel...when it’s really about saying that of all the flawed states of the world...only one doesn’t have the right to exist, and that is the Jewish state.”
That’s when McCain brought up Rep. Omar’s tweet about Israel having “hypnotized” the world, which she deleted. Omar has long apologized for her tweet and claimed that she was ignorant to the anti-Semitic connotation of the word “hypnotized” and its associated message, but that didn’t stop McCain and Weiss from falsely using Omar as a symbol and propagator of anti-Semitism, as if her more recent criticisms of the Israeli government and AIPAC are only valid if she stands up for Palestinians without so much mentioning Israel itself.
Weiss also accused the left of “smuggling” anti-Semitism into the mainstream “under the guise of progressive values,” like standing up against racism and for “downtrodden Palestinians, which they are.” When asked by co-host Sunny Hostin if it’s OK to oppose Israel’s human rights violations without evoking Israel, Weiss said she agreed.
“Just as I am a proud American and I criticize Donald Trump’s policy of separating families at the border...that’s 100 percent kosher,” Weiss said. “It makes you in fact love America because you want it to stand up for its ideals.” After criticizing Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Weiss went on to say that criticism of Israel “crosses a line” into anti-Semitism when someone says that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist—a thing that Omar has not said.
Great job everyone, glad we figured this out. Anyway, if you must, you can watched the whole thing below.