Rep. Omar’s statements tarnishing her American dream
Ilhan Omar came to the United States as a refugee, after fleeing Somalia as that country devolved into anarchy. She spent five years in a camp in Kenya waiting to gain admission to the country that became her second home. She studied hard, followed the rules and obtained her U.S. citizenship. And after entering politics and becoming the first Muslim woman to be elected to the Minnesota state Legislature, she grasped the brass ring this past November and was elected to Congress.
Ilhan Omar is living the immigrant dream. For some, though, she is the nightmare.
Omar has been quite vocal in her anger at Israel, a country she has called evil. In a notorious tweet from 2012, the congresswoman stated that “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” I would say that Allah has a lot on his hands worrying about the evil being perpetrated by Omar’s native Somalia, among other countries that violate the human rights of their people, but that’s beside the point. The congresswoman clearly has no love for Israel.
That, in and of itself, does not mean that she is a bigot. As my friend and fellow columnist Stu Bykofsky wrote in an exceptional column this week, “I find charges of anti-Semitism and racism to be so serious that they require indisputable proof.” Many of the people quoted in his column made the distinction between criticizing the policies of the country, particularly with respect to its treatment of the Palestinians, and engaging in Protocol of the Elders-style innuendo.
Taking Omar’s comments in context, and looking at her history, I have no problem whatsoever calling her a bigot. She has not just attacked a country. She has made reference to the ancient slur against Jews as being interested only in money when she tweeted that U.S. support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins.” Clearly, she was not referring to Benjamin Disraeli.
And it is not just anti-Semitism that animates her. Recently, when a group of young men from Covington Catholic high school in Kentucky were embroiled in a controversy at the March for Life, many public figures had a knee-jerk reaction and threw some pretty defamatory rhetoric in their direction. Some of those public figures likely are going to be sued. Not surprisingly, Omar is one of them.
Shortly after that highly edited video made the media rounds, the congresswoman tweeted: “The boys were protesting a woman’s right to choose and yelled ‘it’s not rape if you enjoy it.’” She later deleted the tweet, but never apologized for framing the March for Life as an anti-woman protest. More importantly, she trafficked in an unproven slander about Catholic boys making fun of rape. Omar went even further, and said the students were “taunting five Black Men.” She failed to mention that it was the “5 Black Men” who had called the boys racist epithets like “cracker” and incest babies.
So Omar does not like Israel, and she does not like Catholic boys, and she also seems to have a problem with gay men.
After Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., showed support for some of President Trump’s initiatives, Omar tweeted out that he was “compromised.” This was taken as a reference to the widely rumored belief that the senior senator from South Carolina is gay, and that he is being blackmailed by Trump. This, apparently, is the only explanation Omar could come up with about Graham’s occasional support for his party’s leader, despite having crossed swords with him in the past.
Omar is not alone in her bigotry. Need I remind everyone of the fact that the House of Virginia is about to fall because its governor, attorney general and at least one GOP leader wore blackface and/or dressed in sheets? And then, of course, there is U.S. Rep. Steve King from Iowa, whose comment about white nationalism and kids with cantaloupe thighs will go down in the annals of racism as particularly noteworthy. I mean, it’s not every day that someone makes a fruit-based racial
Omar has been quite vocal in her anger at Israel, a country she has called evil. In a notorious tweet from 2012, the congresswoman stated that “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” I would say that Allah has a lot on his hands worrying about the evil being perpetrated by Omar’s native Somalia, among other countries that violate the human rights of their people, but that’s beside the point. The congresswoman clearly has no love for Israel.
slur.
But the reason that the congresswoman from Minnesota’s bigotry is particularly troubling is because she herself comes from a group of people who are regularly targeted for discrimination. I didn’t go down to the Philadelphia airport to protest Trump’s Muslim Ban because I had time on my hands. I went because Islamophobia is real.
So is anti-Semitism. So is anti-Catholicism. So is homophobia.
So how is it that a Muslim immigrant doesn’t see that?