The silence is telling.

In the recent dust-up over the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu barring Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and her colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) from Israel, House Democrats have been silent as church mice about the organization that was to have sponsored Omar and Tlaib’s trip. That group is known as “Miftah.”

A serious hat tip goes to National Review’s David French and the Washington Examiner’s Seth Mandel’s Twitter feed for shining a spotlight on just what Miftah believes.

Let’s start with this gem, as reported here by NGO Monitor, which specializes in “fact-based research and independent analysis about non-governmental organizations (NGOs), their funders, and other stakeholders, primarily in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

The NGO Monitor reported:

On March 27, 2013 MIFTAH, a Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 1998 by Hanan Ashrawi (Chair of MIFTAH’s Board of Directors), published an article by Nawaf al-Zaru that repeated the antisemitic blood libel. He wrote, “Does Obama in fact know the relationship, for example, between ‘Passover’ and ‘Christian blood’… ?! Or ‘Passover’ and ‘Jewish blood rituals…?! Much of the historical stories and tales about Jewish blood rituals in Europe are based on real rituals and are not false as they claim; the Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover … ” (translated from the original Arabic by NGO Monitor).

Miftah responded to the criticism by taking the article down and issuing this statement, which said in part:

MIFTAH has and always will promote the principles of democracy and a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Really?

Then, how to explain another Miftah posting, which, as French points out, originated here with, yes indeed, American neo-Nazis. The title:

Who Rules America: The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must Be Broken

The short answer to the question posted by the neo-Nazis of “Who Rules America” is, but of course, “the Jews.” French links to this tweet from Vox’s Jane Coaston that pinpoints the source as the “National Vanguard, a neo-Nazi group founded in 2005 in Charlottesville by members of the National Alliance.”

There is more about Miftah, of course. French points to, among other things, a Miftah contributor celebrating one Dalal Al-Mughrabi, a woman who was hailed for giving her life in a “military operation” — the latter turning out to be “a bus hijacking that resulted in the deaths of 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children.”

French’s central point is spot on. To wit: Where is the media on this story? As Becket Adams over at the Washington Examiner has pointed out, whether it is the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, or the New York Times, all mildly described Miftah merely as a “Palestinian group” or “a nonprofit organization headed by a Palestinian lawmaker” and so on. The New York Times, at least, published an op-ed that did acknowledge some of Miftah’s scurrilous doings. Other than that, there is not a syllable that would indicate Miftah has been publishing anti-Semitic propaganda — except from Fox News, which is on the job as a serious home to serious journalism, as is seen with this headline from the Fox News website:

Miftah group that planned Tlaib-Omar Israel trip once referred to suicide bombing as sacrifice ‘for the cause’

But there is another aspect as well: the role of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats. What was the reaction of the House Democrats to the Omar/Tlaib trip controversy? This, as headlined by the McClatchy news service:

House Democrats weigh action against U.S. and Israel ambassadors over banned visit

You read that right. The first response by House Democrats was to “take action” against both the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, and the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, for their role in the cancellation. And the other response? Here’s the headline from the New York Post:

Ocasio-Cortez says cutting military, economic aid to Israel ‘can be discussed’

AOC was joined in this call by no less than Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.).

The silence on Miftah by Democrats is surely not an accident. Notably, Politico has reported that the now-canceled trip for Omar and Tlaib was not the only Democratic congressional trip to be sponsored by Miftah. The Politico headline:

POLITICO Playbook PM: Scoop: Miftah wasn’t a problem when other congressmen went to ‘Palestine’ with them

The congressmen who took that Miftah trip were all Democrats, with Politico reporting it this way:

IN 2016, Reps. MATT CARTWRIGHT (D-Pa.), DAN KILDEE (D-Mich.), MARK POCAN (D-Wis.), LUIS GUTIERREZ (D-Ill.) and HANK JOHNSON (D-Ga.) all went on a five-day trip to Israel and the West Bank sponsored by the group.

As discussed in this space earlier, the American Left has a serious, growing problem with anti-Semitism. Back in 2015 talk radio’s Mark Levin took the issue head on, both on his own radio show and Sean Hannity’s TV show. In the day his point was anti-Semitism in the Obama administration, starting with Obama himself.

Today, without question, the simmering anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel is reflected in the silence from House Democrats about Miftah. Incredibly, not only are they silent about Miftah, clearly some of their fellow Democrats have been cozying up to what is, with this kind of seriously anti-Semitic record, something very recognizable indeed: a hate group.