Ilhan vs. Goliath

By Theo Horesh, author of The Holocausts We All Deny

If you want to identify a nation’s most courageous leaders, notice who is willing to take on the most entrenched interests at the highest personal cost. If you want to identify a nation’s most moral leaders, notice who is willing to take a stand on what everyone else tiptoes around. And if you want to identify the soul of the nation, notice who is acting most gracefully and courageously in the name of its highest ideals.

Israel is carrying out the longest standing occupation in the world today. They are starving Gaza of resources while colonizing the West Bank. They have shot thousands of demonstrators with live ammunition in the last year alone. They are pushing our country into a war with Iran while their lobby is systematically dividing the Democratic Party. And yet somehow, a bi-partisan consensus of spineless politicians gives them billions of dollars in aid each year.

Meanwhile, the first Muslim refugee elected to Congress, in an era in which both Muslims and refugees are actively persecuted, is playing David to this Goliath, bearing racist threats and the accusation of antisemitism, in a fight for the soul of the nation. And through her words and demeanor, Ilhan Omar is breaking stereotypes of the passive Muslim woman while drawing our attention to the redemptive power of truth.

Ilhan Omar reminds us of the active role immigrants and refugees have always played in building our nation and the baselessness of stereotypes of minuscule minorities. If the Democratic Party leadership and the powers that be are too afraid to see what she is naming, much less say it, then we should look elsewhere for leadership; and Ilhan Omar is a great place to start.