To Matthew Continetti, the repeated statements by freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar about nefarious influences behind American support for Israel are part of a deliberate effort “to mainstream anti-Semitic rhetoric within the Democratic party.” He considers why Omar’s fellow House Democrats have failed to come together to stop her but have instead chosen to make excuses:

[The Democrats] are tripping over themselves, making rationalizations, dodging reality, and trying to clean up this anti-Semitic mess. Omar is new to this, they say. She never intended to come across as anti-Semitic. She can’t help it. “She comes from a different culture.” She didn’t know what she was saying—she’s a moron! She’s just trying to “start a conversation” about the policies of Israel’s government. And why are you singling her out, anyway? “She is living through a lot of pain.” She’s black, she’s a woman, and she’s Muslim. You can’t condemn her without also condemning white men of privilege. What are you, racist? Islamophobic? Shame on you for picking on this poor lady, who just happens to say that American Jews serve a foreign power by buying off politicians and using the Force to blinker people’s minds. . . .

Whatever control Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had over her majority vanished the second she delayed the resolution condemning Omar, [which was then replaced by one mentioning anti-Semitism among a laundry list of other sins]. Identity politics has rendered the Democrats incapable of criticizing anti-Semitism so long as [that politics] dons the wardrobe of intersectionality. . . .

What’s next for [Omar and her hard-left allies in Congress], finding a candidate to [run against] pro-Israel Democrat Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee on which Omar sits? Challenging Chuck Schumer in the Democratic primary when he’s up for reelection in 2022? . . .

[Meanwhile, Senators] Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and [Bernie] Sanders have all made the claim that Omar has done nothing but criticize the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s a bald-faced lie, a falsehood not one of the hundreds upon hundreds of reporters covering the Democratic field has scrutinized.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.