By the end of last week, instances of anti-Semitic rhetoric by the freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar had become too many to enumerate. Her two apologies, in the space of a few weeks, for earlier statements can no longer be taken seriously, writes Eli Lake, calling on the Democratic leadership to condemn Omar more forcefully:

Here is a Somali-American refugee success story, a woman who embodies the American ideal of citizenship not based on race, creed, or religion. And yet, in barely two months in office, the Minnesota Democrat has repeatedly questioned the loyalty of Zionists.

Historically this kind of thing has been associated with the ugly nativist strain of American politics. David Duke famously called the federal government the ZOG, for Zionist-Occupied Government. A similar note was sounded by Pat Buchanan, who once called Congress Israel’s “amen corner.” More recently one finds this sentiment on the left. . . .

At this point, [however], Omar’s musings should no longer be a surprise. What is surprising is that many Democrats are still demanding an apology. Why do they think a third apology will make a difference? . . . Omar is speaking for a constituency of American progressives who agree with her that Israel and its supporters have warped U.S. foreign policy. . . .

Politically speaking, Omar’s main challenge is to her fellow Democrats. The speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, has sought to promote her as an example of a party that represents America in all its diversity, posing with Omar and other female members of Congress for the cover of Rolling Stone. At the same time, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have denounced Omar’s comments, and House members will [soon] vote on a new resolution to condemn anti-Semitism. It’s unclear whether that resolution will denounce Omar by name, or whether Democrats will strip her of her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as Republicans did when Representative Steve King’s white nationalism finally caught up with him. This much, however, is clear: Democrats have to do more than demand another apology.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.