Minn. Congress nominee once called Israel an ‘apartheid regime,’ but is against BDS
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ilhan Omar, who once called Israel an “apartheid regime,” but who more recently came out against the boycott Israel movement, handily won the Democratic nomination in a Minneapolis area congressional District.
Omar, a Somali-born community activist and State House representative, is favored to win in November in the 5th District now held by Keith Ellison, who won the DFL primary for state attorney general. DFL is the state’s Democratic Party.
Primaries were held in four states on Tuesday: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont.
Omar’s tweets about Israel have earned her notoriety in the pro-Israel community. In 2012, she said Israel had “hypnotized the world” to ignore its “evil doings.” Defending that tweet earlier this year, she said on the same platform that calling attention to the “Israeli apartheid regime” was not antisemitic.
At a candidates’ forum at the Beth El synagogue last week, Omar affirmed her belief in Israel’s right to exist and said she opposed the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel.
“It is going to be important for us to recognize Israel’s place in the Middle East and the Jewish people’s rightful place within that region,” she said, according to a report by a local news site, TCJewfolk.com.
“I believe right now, with the BDS movement, it’s not helpful in getting that two-state solution,” said Omar, who had been endorsed by the DFL. “I think the particular purpose for [BDS] is to make sure that there is pressure, and I think that pressure really is counteractive. Because in order for us to have a process of getting to a two-state solution, people have to be willing to come to the table and have a conversation about how that is going to be possible, and I think that stops the dialogue.”
Omar is one of two Muslim women likely to be the first elected to Congress. The other is Rashida Tlaib, who won her primary in a Detroit area district last week.
Ellison was the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006. He goes into the November election dogged by allegations of domestic abuse from a former girlfriend. He denies the allegations.
Dean Phillips, the Jewish heir to a distillery fortune and the founder of a gelato company, handily won the DFL primary in the state’s 3rd District and will face incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen in November. Democrats believe they have a shot at flipping the district, which comprises suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Phillips, who rejected money from political action committees, is the grandson of Pauline Friedman Phillips, better known as the advice columnist Dear Abby.
Angie Craig, a former executive who is married to a Jewish woman, was uncontested in the DFL primary in the 2nd District, which comprises the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area and some suburbs. She faces incumbent Republican Jason Lewis in the fall in another district that Democrats hope to flip.
In neighboring Wisconsin, Paul Nehlen, who is openly antisemitic, failed in his bid to win the Republican nod to replace US House of Representatives Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
Nehlen came in a distant third in the southeastern 1st District, garnering 6,526 votes, or 11%. Bryan Steil, a former aide to Ryan, is the GOP nominee.
In Wisconsin’s 6th District, comprising Milwaukee’s outer suburbs, Dan Kohl, a scion of the state’s department-store family and a nephew of former Sen. Herb Kohl, was uncontested in the Democratic primary and will face incumbent Republican Glenn Grothman in November. Kohl is a founder of J Street, the leftist Jewish Middle East policy group, and has its endorsement.
In Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent, won the Democratic primary but said he would reject it and run as an Independent. Sanders, who mounted an unexpectedly strong challenge in 2016 for the Democratic presidential nomination, has confounded the party’s establishment with his insistence on remaining an Independent while caucusing with the party. Sanders was the first Jewish candidate to win major-party nominating contests. He lost to Hillary Clinton.
In Connecticut, David Stemelman, an investment counselor who is active in the Greenwich Jewish community, came in third, with 18% of the vote, in his bid to be the state’s GOP nominee for governor. He lost to Bob Stefanoswki, another investment counselor, who garnered 30% of the vote.
Stefanowski now faces Ned Lamont, a cable executive who won the Democratic nod and who last made headlines in 2006 when he bested then-Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state’s Democratic primary. Lieberman, became the first Jew to appear on a major party ticket when thenvice president Al Gore made him his running mate in 2000. Lieberman went on to reelection in 2006 as an Independent.