Return of “Zionism is racism”

[Valin]

Power Line

Scott Johnson

July 19 2018

As she mounts her campaign to take the congressional seat representing Minnesota’s Fifth District, Ilhan Omar is sticking with the proposition that Israel is an “apartheid regime.” I think this raises a question of decency for which Democrats should be held to account. I noted this in my Weekly Standard article on Omar and have a column coming out specifically addressing Omar’s anti-Israel animus, to which I want to append this footnote.

The proposition that Israel is an “apartheid regime” represents a defamatory falsehood deriving from, or cognate with, the now repealed UN resolution declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism.” In November 1975 then United States Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan rose to condemn the resolution as a “terrible lie” and its adoption by the General Assembly an “infamous act.” The text of Moynihan’s great speech is posted online together with the audio here (posted below). Gil Troy rightly calls this speech Moynihan’s Moment.More than 40 years later, the speech still strikes home.

 

 

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Scott Johnson in Democrats, Israel, Minnesota

Return of “Zionism is racism”

As she mounts her campaign to take the congressional seat representing Minnesota’s Fifth District, Ilhan Omar is sticking with the proposition that Israel is an “apartheid regime.” I think this raises a question of decency for which Democrats should be held to account. I noted this in my Weekly Standard article on Omar and have a column coming out specifically addressing Omar’s anti-Israel animus, to which I want to append this footnote.

The proposition that Israel is an “apartheid regime” represents a defamatory falsehood deriving from, or cognate with, the now repealed UN resolution declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism.” In November 1975 then United States Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan rose to condemn the resolution as a “terrible lie” and its adoption by the General Assembly an “infamous act.” The text of Moynihan’s great speech is posted online together with the audio here (posted below). Gil Troy rightly calls this speech Moynihan’s Moment.More than 40 years later, the speech still strikes home.

As was his wont, Moynihan gave a learned disquisition on the subject. In his peroration Moynihan boldly asserted: “I am here making one point, and one point only, which is that whatever else Zionism may be, it is not and cannot be ‘a form of racism.’ In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically, including many things undesirable, but it could not be and could not become racism unless it ceased to be Zionist.”

 

(Snip)