Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Chair Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement:
Notorious Jew-hater and Israel-hater Cong. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “celebrated” her re-election over her Republican and Marijuana Now party challengers, by immediately resuming Omar’s habit of falsely accusing close U.S. ally Israel of blood libels. In a tweet on November 5, Omar falsely accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in a “direct violation of international law” that left “an entire community homeless” that “will likely experience lifelong trauma” and demanded that the U.S. should not “bankroll” Israel’s actions. In fact, Israel simply lawfully removed seven Bedouin tents and eight pens that were illegally pitched in a firing zone in the Jordan Valley. The tents were unlawful temporary creations pitched for anti-Israel propaganda purposes; they were not homes in a real community.
Rep. Omar also included a biased-against-Israel AFP (Agence France Presse) article along with her antisemitic tweet. AFP has a long, thoroughly-documented history of hiring Palestinian Arab activists as “reporters”; falsely denying Palestinian Islamic terrorism and instead casting Arab terrorists as victims; falsifying history; labeling Jews as “sulfurous”, “extremists” and other names; and much more. (See “The Secret War of Agence France Presse against Israel,” by Yves Mamou, Gatestone Institute, Nov. 15, 2016; and “AFP’s Timeline of Bias,” CAMERA, Sept. 12, 2005.)
Omar’s tweet engendered numerous anti-Israel retweets on twitter, spreading her antisemitic hatred and calling for action against Israel.
Especially today – on the anniversary of Kristallnacht – we need to remember the pernicious impact of antisemitic blood libels.
Congress needs to finally denounce Rep. Omar’s antisemitism and remove her from her committees. Omar moreover must not be allowed to join committees of the 2021-2022 Congress, or a potential new Democratic administration.
ZOA urges political leaders and Jewish leaders and Christian and Muslim leaders and groups such as ADL and AJC and AIPAC and the JCRC’s and the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist Jewish movements, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to publicly condemn the dangerous and hysterical Jew-hating Israelophobia of this terrible racist member of Congress Ilhan Omar!
Rep. Omar has made numerous prior anti-Jewish, anti-American, and anti-Israel statements and legislative actions. For instance, Omar:
- wroteto a judge to demand “compassion” and lighter sentences for convicted ISIS terrorists;
- belittled 9/11 and laughed about Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Al-Shabaab terrorists;
- blamed supposed U.S.“involvement in other people’s affairs” for terrorism against innocent Americans;
- falsely tweeted that Israel is “evil” and an “apartheid regime”;
- tweeted the antisemitic trope that Congress only supports Israel for money (“It’s all about the Benjamins, baby”);
- lied to her constituents by denying her BDS support to initially get elected, and then promoting BDS in Congress, including sponsoring an outrageous Congressional resolution to support anti-Jewish, anti-Israel boycotts, that analogizes such antisemitic boycotts to anti-Nazi boycotts;
- was only one of two legislators who voted against her state’s anti-BDS bill;
- demanded ending Iran sanctions despite increased Iranian nuclear and missile violations;
- employed Mahyar Sorour as her senior legislative assistant and leadership board candidate for NIAC – Iran’s apparent lobbying arm in the U.S.;
- called Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s existence a problem; and
- stated that the danger to Americans is “white men” – not Islamic terrorists.
ZOA’s analysis of Omar’s Federal Election Commission filings revealed that Omar is funded by the worst anti-Israel propagandists and haters. Omar also speaks for anti-Israel CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator for funding Hamas.
Last spring, Ben Weingarten, the author of the eye-opening book, “American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party,” was the first featured author at the ZOA Online Book Club. Mr. Weingarten spoke of Ilhan Omar’s privileged background in Somalia; campaign with Bernie Sanders to lift Iranian sanctions as an unregistered foreign agent for the Iranian regime; and Omar’s legitimization of Jew-hatred, hatred of the Jewish state, and hatred of America. (See video part 1 and part 2.)
America and the Jewish community cannot allow demonstrated Jew-haters and America-haters such as Omar rise to committee or administration positions of power.
We dare not be silent!