Somehow one just knew this was coming.
The virulent anti-Semitism that has been metastasizing through the American Left and the Democratic Party is being given a pass by the Leftist State Media.
As Nicholas Fondacaro has noted correctly over here, the blatant anti-Semitism of Democratic Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashia Tlaib (D-MI), who have been barred from Israel by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been covered up by the Big Three networks.
Over at Mediaite, lefty-writer Tommy Christopher headlined this: “NBC’s Kristen Welker Fact-Checks Trump Smear of Omar and Tlaib: ‘Neither Has Said They Hate Israel or the Israeli People’”
While NewsBusters’s Kyle Drennen pointed out the problems in this segment, Christopher dove in headfirst, referring to a segment on MSNBC Live with Craig Melvin:
NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker fact-checked President Donald Trump instead of simply repeating Trump’s smear that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) “hate Israel & all Jewish people.”
Host Craig Melvin had read this tweet from President Trump aloud:
It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!
Christopher continued with this of Welker discussing the presidential tweet with Melvin.
“Craig, this is an escalation of the ongoing feud between President Trump and these congresswomen,” Welker began, but then added “Now, first a little bit of a fact check.”
“Neither has ever said that they hate Israel or the Israeli people,” Welker said, noting that “They have been critical of the Israeli government. They recently voted, in essence, in favor a boycott of the Israeli state over its treatment of the Palestinians, and they have made some controversial comments about Israeli’s, Omar having to walk back some of those comments.”
Hello? Welker made no “fact check.” She simply ignored the blatant anti-Semitism of Omar and Tlaib that has been quite vividly in evidence.
To begin, as no less than Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu said in this excerpt of a statement (also laid out here in a series of tweets):
Only a few days ago, we received their itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel’s legitimacy. For instance: they listed the destination of their trip as Palestine and not Israel, and unlike all Democratic and Republican members of Congress who have visited Israel, they did not request to meet any Israeli officials, either from the government or the opposition. A week ago, Israel warmly welcomed some 70 Democratic and Republican members of Congress, who expressed broad bipartisan support for Israel, which was also demonstrated a month ago in a resounding bipartisan vote against BDS in Congress. However, the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it.
Why would a Member of Congress simply pretend Israel is…not Israel? Obviously because they hate Israel, which Welker pretends they do not.
In the wake of the news that Israel would not allow Tlaib to enter the country, it was revealed that she had written a letter pleading to visit her aging grandmother, who lives in the West Bank.
The request was granted. And once granted? Tlaib by issuing a statement that now refused the Israeli permission to go, saying melodramatically: “I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in–fighting against racism, oppression & injustice.”
Right.
Not to be forgotten is that Omar tweeted out a message that AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was paying Members of Congress to be pro-Israel. The tweet: “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.” Her Democratic colleague, New York Congressman Eliot Engel called her tweet “the anti-Semitic trope of ‘Jewish money.’” Again, Engel is no conservative, he is Omar’s fellow Democrat in the House.
Not to be forgotten either is this 2012 tweet from Omar: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
Then there was this headline back in January from a New York Post editorial: “Rashida Tlaib casually dives into anti-Semitism”
The focus of the editorial was Tlaib’s remark in support of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and her criticism of colleagues who supported Israel. Tlaib said: “They forgot what country they represent.”
This drew an immediate rebuke from the Jewish Democratic Council of America and the Anti-Defamation League. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said this: “This ‘dual loyalty’ canard is a typical anti-Semitic line. #BDS isn’t about freedom & equality, it’s about destroying #Israel.”
Of course it is. And recall that Tlaib also wrote a column for no less than The Final Call, described here as “an online publication founded and maintained by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.”
Yes, that would be the very same Louis Farrakhan who routinely spews the vilest of anti-Semitism, including “Hitler was a very great man,” the “Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.” and “I'm not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”
The hard fact here is that Omar and Tlaib are rabid anti-Semites. And Welker’s “fact check” was no fact check at all. It was a quite blatant example of what I have come to call “omission journalism” — blatantly leaving on the record facts out of a story and generally these days it is done to push an anti-Trump agenda.
Not to be outdone was Welker’s NBC colleague Peter Alexander. As Fondacaro reported, Alexander dismissed Trump’s tweet by saying the anti-Semitic attacks made by Omar and Tlaib were “attacks both women have rejected.”
Right.
The real problem here is the complete unwillingness of the liberal media to confront this blatant anti-Semitism exhibited by Omar and Tlaib. Instead, they cover for them.
Couple this with the recent story coming out of The New York Times, as reported here by Tim Graham. The leaked transcript of an internal Times meeting between the editorial management and the newsroom personnel shows clearly that The Times is filled not with journalists but far left-wing activists posing as journalists.
And The Times is far from alone in this.
The hard reality is that the Leftist State Media and its denizens will — first, last and always — protect the home team, their fellow lefties. And the need of the moment is to cover-up the fact that these two far-left Members of Congress Israel has barred are in fact hard core anti-Semites because, yes, they really do hate Jews. And yes, they are seriously anti-Israel.
Which is to say, President Trump got the story exactly right. Call it a presidential fact check.
