Ilhan Omar, Bitter Over Being Called Out for Her Antisemitism, Falsely Accuses Democrats of Tolerating Islamophobia

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Ilhan Omar

When, early in his presidency,  Donald Trump was asked about atrocities and war crimes committed by Putin's Russia and other autocratic powers, he responded with, "There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?"

Although it was astounding to hear an elected official equate the United States with murderous regimes led by thugs, let alone the Commander in Chief, Trump had himself made similar statements in defense of his Russian benefactor throughout his campaign for president. Despite wrapping himself in the flag, that was who Donald Trump always was.

Which is why the animous between Donald Trump and Ilhan Omar - who represents a Minnesota district in Congress and is part of the Squad - was never really about pro-Americanism vs. anti-Americanism, despite the public spats having all the trappings of such.

If one is to reassess the difference between Trump and Omar in light of how Omar has presented herself over the years as a legislator and a political commentator, it would be pretty clear that both Trump and Omar believe that America belongs in a list of global moral degenerates. The only thing they disagree about is which list of moral degenerates the country that liberated a continent from fascism belongs to.

For Trump, the list is composed of autocratic state actors like Putin's Russia and Kim Jung Un's North Korea. But for Omar, the list is made out of terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Taliban.

Ilhan Omar said as much.

Omar, who in a tweet embellished her questioning of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during a Congressional committee hearing, put the United States and Israel on the same, equivalent moral plain with Hamas and the Taliban in the guise of seeking justice for "all" victims of crimes against humanity. While she repeatedly used the term 'allegedly' to preface victims in the hearing while speaking with Blinken, though, her tweet eliminated that term, and simply stated that "unthinkable" atrocities were committed by all four parties.


Omar's tweet and its nascent anti-democratic, anti-American, antisemitic sentiment, more than her exchange with the Secretary of State, rightly sparked outrage. Jewish American organizations across the political spectrum criticized Omar for stoking hate against the Jewish people at a time antisemitic hate crimes are on the rise by equating the world's sole Jewish, democratic state with terrorist organizations.

The blowback hit a chorus when a group of Jewish Democratic members of Congress released a statement condemning Omar's equation of countries like the United States and Israel with democratic systems of government and independent judiciaries that have held our own accountable for crimes committed in conflict - imperfect as we are - with outfits whose only goal is to slaughter the innocent.
Initially, after the statement by the group of Jewish House Democrats, Omar doubled down and enlisted others in the socialist squad to fight back, claiming that any criticism of Omar, who is Black and Muslim, is racist and Islamophobic.

But the dumbfounding level of stupid and hypocrisy - of people who insist that challenging the whole existence of a Jewish state is somehow not antisemitic trying to claim that any criticism of Omar must be rooted in prejudice against her race and religion - did not stick. As the day went on, criticisms of Omar's comments only grew louder, and Omar finally backed off, releasing a statement from her office, claiming that it was not her intent to equate terrorist organizations with "democratic countries with well-established judicial systems."

Following Omar's latter statement, the House Democratic leadership, including Speaker Pelosi, released a joint statement condemning the type of false equivalencies Omar sought to draw and welcoming Omar's 'clarification.'
Evidently, though, Omar did not really mean what she said in her statement about not equating democracies with terrorist organizations, and she reacted badly to the leadership statement praising her own clarification. 

Following the House leadership statement, Omar re-engaged in the fight, this time with rank-whataboutism over a 2019 video of Republican Rep. Mo Brooks in which Brooks engages in virulent Islamophobic commentary. "Democratic colleagues won't condemn" racism like Brooks's, erroneously whined Omar.

Democratic Jewish organizations have been vocal in their opposition to not just people like Mo Brooks, but the very statement by Brooks that Omar claims went unchallenged.

Omar also conveniently omits the fact that as one of their first acts after taking power in the House in 2019, Speaker Pelosi and Democrats pushed through an anti-hate resolution that specifically condemned both antisemitism and Islamophobia. Democrats did so in the aftermath of another one of Omar's somewhat-frequent antisemitic episodes in which she had accused Jewish Americans of dual loyalty. But recognizing that Muslim Americans were under constant attack, the leadership used it as an opportunity to condemn the culture of hate rather than singling out antisemitism, which many Democrats and Republicans wanted to do.

Omar appears to have taken the fact that her antisemitism wasn't singled out as a license to commit more and bolder acts of it.

Ilhan Omar is a one-woman antisemitic cancer on the Democratic body politic. Her sharp jabs against Jews as a group and Israel as a people are not likely to subside. When she engages in it again - and sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, she is guaranteed to - she must face more than statements of condemnation. She must face escalating consequences, including removal from Committee assignments.


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