is a confused anti-Semite. In 2012, she thought Israel (translation: the Jews) controlled the world through hypnosis. Now, seven years later, she believes something else: ‘it’s all about the Benjamins.’ Both ideas are classic anti-Semitic tropes. In a piece for Commentary magazine late last month, Abe Greenwald dissected the trope that had inspired Omar’s 2012 tweet. He writes:
‘The history of mystical anti-Semitism is long indeed. It predates Christendom and thrived, at times, long afterward. Martin Luther wrote that “a Jew is as full of idolatry and sorcery as nine cows have hair on their backs, that is: without number and without end.” Such notions were popular throughout Medieval Europe and survived in various forms into the modern age. The Third Reich was, in part, an occult operation. Official Nazi publications discussed phenomena such as the “Jewish evil eye.”’
