Diagnosing Ilhan Omar’s Antisemitic Disease

British historian Paul Johnson has argued that antisemitism is a “disease of the mind,” a hatred so peculiar that it deserves a category of its own. It’s a disease of contradiction and irrationality. Simultaneously, Jews are covetous capitalists and conniving communists; Christ-killing religious fanatics and godless atheists; superhuman rulers of the world, and subhuman leeches of society. Currently, as the disease spreads in America, one of antisemitism’s most infectious carriers is a Democratic Congresswoman from Minnesota.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s obsession with Jews and Israel doesn’t have any definite beginning, but it can be conjectured that she may have been acquainted with antisemitism having been raised in Somalia.

Human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, also a native of Somalia, explains how she grew up in similar circumstances as Omar, a product of a militant Islamist and unapologetic antisemitic society. Ultimately, Hirsi Ali managed to unlearn her antisemitism, becoming a champion for Jews upon immigrating, while Omar only diverted further from that path, becoming a public enemy of the Jews upon her Congressional election.