What’s been going on in Minneapolis is no coincidence, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. The city which is in a virtual state of insurrection against the federal government’s efforts to enforce immigration laws is also the place where a massive fraud was perpetrated against American taxpayers by Somali immigrants with ties to a jihadist group and which is also represented by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)one of the country’s leading antisemites.

He’s joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by investigative journalist Ben Weingarten, Newsmax contributor and author of American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party. Weingarten says that events in Minnesota demonstrate what he calls the failed “progressive model of governance,” which combines advocacy for open borders and non-enforcement of immigration laws with corruption. Moreover, he says that some of the same forces that are creating mayhem there were similarly part of the activism that produced the “mostly peaceful” riots of the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020 and the pro-Hamas antisemitic protests since Oct. 7, 2023.

Weingarten also breaks down his recent reporting about President Donald Trump’s proposed Board of Peace and the supposedly apolitical Palestinian technocrat that has been tapped to lead the reconstruction of Gaza. According to Weingarten, Ali Shaath is, like all those who have been part of the corrupt Palestinian Authority, not a supporter of peace with Israel. Rather, he is someone who supports the ongoing war to destroy the Jewish state embraced by most Palestinians and is unlikely to do anything that would prevent Gaza from being turned back into a terrorist fortress from which the Jewish state could be attacked.

The journalist also analyzes U.S. policy toward Iran and says that predictions that the Trump administration may be ready to embrace a policy of negotiation and appeasement toward the Islamist regime are premature. He also commented that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s memoir detailing the way he was vetted by the staff of former vice president Kamala Harris for their party’s vice-presidential nomination illustrates the serious antisemitism problem in the Democratic Party, which is even more significant than the troubling outbreak of Jew-hatred on the right.

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