I’ve written at length about the Democratic party’s radical branch and how it’s liable to alienate large swaths of moderate voters. This week the party took action to distance itself from that branch by withdrawing its support for the Women’s March, held last Saturday, over its leaders’ affiliation with anti-Semites and their own anti-Jewish rhetoric. The result was a poor turnout for the march, and not one speech offered by a member of Congress.

However, given the dizzying pace of events in Washington, the Democrats’ small gesture was drowned out in a sea of more high-profile events, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib posing for a photo with a Hezbollah supporter in Michigan and the appointment of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. So far, the Democratic National Committee, nor the offices of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have specifically addressed the anti-Israel statements of these two party members.

Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), said that’s because they are an extreme minority in the party. “There are two new members of Congress who have articulated support for the BDS movement, but there are 535 members of Congress,” she said. “Not one Democrat in the Senate and now only two of the 230 Democrats in the House support BDS. They don’t represent the party. They don’t even represent the majority of voices in the party. They represent themselves. There are two women whose views are distinct from the party as a whole and from mainstream Democrats. They are on the fringe.”

Others are alarmed nonetheless. The Coalition for Jewish Values, representing over 1,000 Orthodox rabbis across America, issued a sharp condemnation of Omar’s committee appointment, telling House Majority Leader Pelosi it was a “slap in the face” and claiming it is “tantamount to saying that anti-Semitism is acceptable.” The Coalition further noted that the Republican Party had stripped Rep. Steve King of all his committee assignments after he expressed a support for white nationalism last week.

I asked Soifer how the Democrats will respond if Omar uses her committee appointment to single out Israel for criticism.

“We will see what happens since she was just appointed,” Soifer said. “But if she expresses support for BDS or for a one-state solution that doesn’t include Israel, we will continue to speak out strongly against her and I imagine you’ll see other Democrats in Congress do so as well.”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 745)