Radicals
Rally to Support Ilhan Omar's Anti-Semitic Tweets
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
February 13, 2019
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Anti-Semitic sentiments and incidents
continue to rise worldwide, particularly in the West.
Sometimes this form of bigotry is perpetuated by far-right elements, other
times at the hands of far-leftists and Islamists. It is rare to see both extremes unite for
any cause except for their mutual disdain for Israel or Jews. It is even
rarer to see them applaud and defend an American politician.
But that is exactly what's happening as Rep. Ilhan Omar's anti-Jewish
tropes receive widespread praise from both U.S.-based Islamists and white
supremacists.
Criticism and condemnation rained down on Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, Monday after
she tweeted, "It's all about the Benjamins baby"
to explain why she and fellow Democrat Rashida Tlaib draw attention for
their "criticisms of Israel."
Who is the source of this popular reference to cash? "AIPAC!"
Omar added, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Facing serious backlash from many in her party, Omar issued a caveated apology. "My intention is never to offend
my constituents of Jewish Americans as a whole...This is why I
unequivocally apologize," she wrote before qualifying that she has an
issue with "lobbyists in our politics" such as AIPAC.
Omar's views are hypocritical given that she received almost $60,000
from political action committees and lobbyists, including $5,000 from CAIR-California in 2018.
On Wednesday, CNN's Manu Raju reported
that Omar was curt and sarcastic in response to his questions on her
initial comments. Omar answered, "Are you serious?" to one of
Raju's questions and then she said:
"Yes I tweeted, and there's a response. You can run that. Have a nice
day."
Omar seems unaware of how offensive her initial comments are, or she
comes off as insincere in her apology. She has remained silent while people
have tried to raise money for her 2020 re-election campaign as an act
of defiance against the criticism she is receiving.
And, further undermining the sincerity of her apology, she has said
nothing to correct those who insist she did nothing wrong.
Many people have tried to defend Omar. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who sees Israel as "an apartheid,
rogue, terrorist state," started the controversy by saying Omar and
fellow freshman U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib were being singled out for criticism
because "U.S. political leaders ... – [were] defending a foreign
nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans."
Omar's "all about the Benjamins" response implied Jewish money
was the driving factor. Greenwald condemned House Democratic leaders as
"craven, cowardly" and said their reaction proved his point:
"So a young, exciting, dynamic immigrant - the first black Muslim
woman ever elected to Congress - is denounced by her own Party's leadership
less than a month after she arrives in DC, due to her criticisms of AIPAC
& Israel," he wrote. "Does this say anything about the power
dynamic in DC?"
But the strongest defense for Omar comes from U.S.-based Islamist groups
and leaders.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), for example, issued a
statement Monday acknowledging that anti-Semitism is real, but Omar
hasn't engaged in it. Supporters of Israel, according to CAIR, are the real
problem. "CAIR applauds Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for their
courage in speaking the truth about Israel's racial, religious and ethnic
segregation. Agenda-driven groups -- like AIPAC -- have for decades enabled
that segregation and the resulting denial of human rights for Christian and
Muslim Palestinians."
CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad thanked Omar and Tlaib for their "courageous and
principled stance" against the "Israeli Lobby." Awad has
deep connections to a U.S.-based Hamas support network that operated during
the 1990s. The "Palestine Committee" umbrella including the
Islamic Association for Palestine, where Awad worked before creating CAIR.
And he was included in Palestine Committee rosters and meetings. When CAIR was formed in 1994, the same year
Awad publicly endorsed Hamas, it was immediately added to the Palestine Committee.
CAIR's leadership appears to forget that they run an "agenda-driven
group," devoted to whitewashing Hamas and other terrorist activity against
Israel while CAIR leaders praise Islamist regimes, like Recep Tayyip's Erdogan's
Turkey, which earned the distinction of being the world's top jailer
of journalists.
On Tuesday, activist Ahmed Bedier, former executive director of CAIR's Tampa
chapter, tweeted
that the "far right is targeting" Ilhan Omar in response to a Politico
story.
Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the national Women's March, also chimed in on
Tuesday, tweeting that the "end goal of the right is to
marginalize prominent voices who dare speak up for Palestinians,"
adding "We need to resist this." Sarsour has her own long record
of anti-Semitism, including blasting any attempts of interfaith dialogue or
civic cooperation that include "Zionists." She promotes a conspiracy theory,
the IPT exclusively exposed last September, saying Jews are
responsible for American police shooting unarmed black people because of a
leadership training program in Israel. She has never apologized for the
smear.
Does the "right" or "far right" include Nancy Pelosi
and the House Democratic Leadership? Because Democratic leaders
unequivocally rejected Omar's comments as anti-Semitic in a statement
on Monday.
"We are and will always be strong supporters of Israel in Congress
because we understand that our support is based on shared values and
strategic interests," their statement said. "Legitimate criticism
of Israel's policies is protected by the values of free speech and
democratic debate that the United States and Israel share. But
Congresswoman Omar's use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations
about Israel's supporters is deeply offensive."
To Sarsour and others, however, Omar did nothing wrong. In fact, she is
the victim.
"I will not be silent in the face of attacks, harassment and
targeted policing of speech from a Black Muslim woman elected official, our
sister Ilhan
Omar in the name of combatting antisemitism," Sarsour wrote on Facebook. We can stand up for Ilhan knowing
her record and what she stands for and also combat antisemitism."
But Omar's record includes a 2012 complaint
that Israel "hypnotized the world" and she prayed that
"Allah [would] awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of
Israel."
Prominent American Islamists Esam Omeish and Hassan Shibly shared Linda Sarsour's Facebook post on Monday blasting AIPAC. Omeish, who praised Palestinians in a 2000 speech for deciding that
the "Jihad way is the way to liberate your land," and has lauded Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, tells his followers to "STAND WITH ILHAN."
Shibly runs CAIR's office in Tampa. As a college student, he said
that Iran's Lebanese proxy Hizballah is "absolutely not a terrorist
organization, and any war against them is illegitimate." He has
repeatedly accused the FBI of entrapping
innocent Muslims and even of cold-blooded murder.
The latest addition to Omar's public defense comes from Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, which
"expresses our solidarity with solidarity with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), targeted for racist anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and fundamentally
anti-Palestinian attacks." Al-Awda called the immediate backlash to
Omar's comments "an attempt to silence, marginalize and suppress
criticism of Israel and support for the Palestinian people's fundamental
rights to self-determination, national liberation and return."
This coalition, like other Islamist groups, unabashedly supports efforts
to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel by advocating for Palestinian
refugees and their descendants to "return" to Israel and erode
the country's Jewish majority.
Similarly, Samidoun, a Palestinian prisoner's advocacy group, hailed Omar for her BDS support and "urges a broad
mobilization to defend her against media and political incitement by Israel
and its allies."
"Rep. Omar said nothing wrong" in her statements that she sort
of apologized for and which Democratic Party leaders admit was blatantly
anti-Semitic.
In 2017, Samidoun organized a seminar celebrating the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)'s 50th anniversary. The PFLP
is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians.
Among them, the 1969 bombing of a Jerusalem grocery store that killed two
college students. Samidoun championed the cause of bombing plotter Rasmieh Odeh when she was prosecuted for naturalization
fraud.
But U.S. Islamists are not the only ones defending Omar. Former Ku Klux
Klan leader David Duke also backed Omar's assessment when responding to former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley's rebuke of Omar.
"So, let us get this straight. It is 'Anti-Semitism' to point out
that the most powerful political moneybags in American politics are
Zionists who put another nation's interest (israel's) over that of America
??????," Duke tweeted on Monday.
Helping their Islamist allies, far-left organization Jewish Voice for
Peace (JVP) launched a website and campaign called
"#IStandWithIlhan." JVP pushes the "Boycott, Divest and
Sanction" (BDS) campaign that seeks to isolate Israel politically and
economically. It is seen as anti-Semitic since activists have not
launched similar campaigns to target countries with worse human rights
records, or those which occupy land like Turkey, Russia, China and others.
During her primary campaign, Omar claimed
she didn't support the BDS movement because it would not help bring about a
peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She
quickly reversed herself after winning election to Congress.
But JVP still takes her at her word: "Omar continues to be attacked
by a bad-faith smear campaign" despite her apology "for the
impact of her statements."
Even Omar's defenders qualify her initial responses as a "I'm sorry
that you were offended" type apology.
Last year, concerned leaders from Minneapolis' Jewish community hosted a
type of "anti-Semitic intervention of Omar" as a
result of her previous comments.
But Omar's anti-Semitic statements linking support for Israel to Jewish
money, along with her somewhat disdainful reaction to questions, clearly
show that Omar failed to learn how to express herself without invoking
anti-Semitic tropes. She can prove us wrong by repudiating those who
"#StandWithIlhan."
Related Topics: Steven
Emerson, Ilhan
Omar, anti-Semitism,
social
media, CAIR,
Linda
Sarsour, Glenn
Greenwald, Rashida
Tlaib, Nihad
Awad, Ahmed
Bedier, Hassan
Shibly, Esam
Omeish, Al-Awda,
Samidoun,
David
Duke, Jewish
Voice for Peace, BDS
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