Muslim Democrat admits she’s pro-BDS, contradicts campaign position
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar. (AP Photo/Jim Mone,File)
Representative-Elect Ilhan Omar told over 1,000 attendees at a campaign event in August that the anti-Israel boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement is “counteractive,” deeming it not “helpful in getting a two-state solution.” The event was held at a Minneapolis area synagogue and attracted members of the Jewish community.
She was specifically pressed on BDS based on her history of anti-Israel social media posts, including a tweet claiming, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel ,” which she posted six years ago. She also referred to Israel as an “apartheid regime” and denied “hating Jews.”
On Sunday, a website called Muslim Girl published a statement from Omar’s staff admitting that “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”
In the Muslim Girl piece, Omar inexplicably defines “anti-Semitism” as “ not criticiz[ing] a brutal government committing human rights violations against an occupied peoples, … because it is politically inconvenient for those that support the Israeli government and its criminal tactics.”
With Omar appearing to contradict her campaign position on BDS less than a week after winning her congressional race, members of her constituency questioned her regarding the apparent about-face.
Minneapolis-based journalist Lonny Goldsmith specifically asked Omar on Monday about her pro-BDS statements, which she confirmed in a text message exchange that was later published by the community news site TC Jewfolk .
Omar told Goldsmith her “position [on BDS] has always been the same” and that she “supports the BDS movement. She also denied that representing herself as opposing BDS at a campaign event held at a synagogue was “politically expedient.”
‘Bait-and-switch’ campaign?
A member of the synagogue that hosted the August event expressed disappointment in an interview with World Israel News ( WIN ) on Thursday.
“I’m dismayed that Ms. Omar is now showing support for BDS. It feels like a bit like a bait-and-switch,” commented the community member, who requested that his name not be published. “I heard her talk about the importance of working towards a two state solution. I also meet with her this summer at a different campaign event in Minneapolis specifically to talk with her about Israel.”
“She admitted that she didn’t know much about Israel or the history of the region, and was interested in learning more about the US-Israel relationship,” he told WIN .
Omar’s campaign statements about BDS are included in this clip:
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Just another link in the Democratic chain to damage Israel. As others have done, just tell the Jews what they want to hear, get their money and votes, get elected, and then kick them in the ass. At least Bernie Sanders is honest about his negative opinion of Israel.
Trump's not perfect, but at least you know where he stands on the issues.
True and while that is great his means and ways of accomplishment some times sure lack detail and are over blown, grandiose and therefor unrealistic in they're raw form, look at the instantaneous immigration Zero policy enactment mess for just one example of one of his flawed enactments. I look or more if he doesnt change some. A lot actually.
Trump's not perfect, I also dont think he's not quite as intelligent on everything as he likes to believe he is.
My main concerns about president trump is more long term. How will he leave us and what kind of leader will be able to take over what he leaves ?
I would like to point out to both you and Tacos that Trump is NOT the topic of this seed. Any continuation of discussing Trump will cause me to have all comments concerning him, including yours, deleted for being off topic.
Sorry Buzz I dont pay too much attention to the article I'm replying to I just read the posts and reply to some of them after I've had my say on articles I want to specificity want to post on.
Okay, you're forgiven. LOL
It was not my intent to derail. I thought it was relevant. Weighing characteristics like someone's trustworthiness on the issues is important.
Hypothetically, I might vote for a candidate like Omar even if she was kind of new at politics because I liked her positions on the issues, while rejecting a more experienced person. I find it hard to vote for someone - no matter how experienced they are - if I can't trust what they say about the issues.
So, for example, in 2008, I voted for Clinton because I trusted her on the issues. Since, then, she has reversed course on several positions and so I ended up voting for a person who was inexperienced and pretty rude, but seemed honest about where he stood.
That's why I thought it was relevant to bring him up. When politicians are deliberately deceptive about what they believe and they end up winning, I feel like a fraud has been perpetrated on the voters. The same might be said of Republicans who promised to replace Obamacare but didn't even have a plan ready to go when they took control of Congress.
Okay, okay, you too. Although your explanation makes it a bit of a stretch, I'll accept it.
Ilhan Omar Shows Dems Aren’t Interested In Confronting Antisemitism
By David Harsanyi, FEDERALIST November 14, 2018
Ilhan Omar, one of the first of two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, is a new kind of politician. She’s telegenic. Ideologically progressive. Widely celebrated by a media that’s obsessed with identity politics. She’s the kind of politician who can openly side with Hamas against Israel or spread “Protocols of Zion”-style conspiracies on Twitter, claiming that Jews possess the supernatural ability to hypnotize the world as they unfurl their “evil.”
It’s not surprising, then, that Omar also supports the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movement (BDS). In a statement to the website Muslim Girl ( later confirmed elsewhere ), someone on Omar’s staff explains that, yes, “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”
So, although Omar contends that BDS will be ineffective in getting the sides to “a lasting solution,” she stills “believes in and supports” a movement that smears the Jewish state as a racist endeavor and aims to destroy it economically. It’s a mystery, is it not, why some Jews might find that positioning offensive?
Omar has supported BDS for a while, even though she will now occasionally slip in some platitudes about the peace process. As Scott Johnson of Power Line (who’s been following this story from the beginning) points out , Omar misled Jewish voters in her district, obfuscating about her position and, as she still does, conflating her support for BDS with a bill that would have stopped continued taxpayer funding of the movement. No one is attempting to “criminalize” anti-Israel speech, although it’s heartening to see Omar is a free-speech absolutist. We’ll see if her position on the “criminalization” of speech will remain consistent moving forward, and not reserved for supporters of Hamas.
As far as I know, not even former congressman Keith Ellison, who once accused the shifty Jews of running American foreign policy, openly supported the BDS movement. Not even J-Street , the progressive front for hard-left activists posing as Israel supporters, openly backed BDS. Nor does George Soros, although he has intermittently funded BDS groups in the past and has been active against the Jewish state for years.
Of course, BDS proponents will tell you they are anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. But when you’re fixated on the only liberal state in the Middle East, and avoid criticism of any Islamic regimes that deny their own citizens the most basic of human rights, you, at the very least, betray a morally bankrupt position. Even as Hamas rains hundreds of rockets down on civilians—a nihilistic project that always takes precedent over investing in their own people in their own autonomous Palestinian territory—there is criticism from those who only see evil behind Jewish acts of self-defense.
It’s no mistake that Omar insists Israel is an “ apartheid regime ,” an ugly, simplistic, misleading, and irresponsible accusation. It’s not only the propellant for anti-Semitism on campuses across the country, it’s the foundational accusation of the BDS movement, which is attempting to recreate the campaign against racist South African apartheid in the 1980s.
Israel’s laws, of course, make absolutely no distinctions based on a person’s race. Every person in Israel has the ability to participate in the democratic process, and all have equal standing under the law. Muslims in Israel have more liberal rights than Muslims anywhere in the Arab world do. What we do have is a complex situation involving one-time Jewish land that once again fell under Israeli rule after a bunch of neighboring countries tried to destroy it.
Yet Democrats, who claim to hear anti-Semitism dog whistles from every porch in Red America, rarely see a problem with this kind of rhetoric. The FBI says that Jews were the victims of 60 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes in 2017 , although they were just 2 percent of the population. Whatever inherent flaws exist in these self-reporting statistics, the disparity is real. Despite the horrific shooting in Pittsburgh and Jew hatred on the far Right, it’s almost certain that the average American Jew is more likely to encounter an aggressively “anti-Zionist” BDS activist on a campus (or a progressive march) than a white supremacist anywhere.
Just ask Tamika Mallory or Linda Sarsour or Sophie Ellman-Golan as they simultaneously infantilize and radicalize mainstream left-wing politics. Not a single Democratic Party leader has condemned their ugly rhetoric or relationship with hate-mongers or their insistence on singling out the one country that happens to be filled with Jews. Then again, not one Democrat has condemned Omar for comparing the Jewish state to a racist regime.
Put it this way, TV actress-turned activist Alyssa Milano has been more courageous than Sen. Chuck Schumer about standing up against anti-Semitism. Debra Messing is braver than Brian Schatz, Bernie Sanders, Dianne Feinstein, and Richard Blumenthal. Fortunately, not everyone is consumed by sheer political expediency.
What does her brother/husband say about it?
She married her brother?
Would AlphaNews be a credible source? What does Snopes and MBFC report?
I tried to follow that, but my brain started to hurt pretty quick.
I don't know much about her politics, but I like the way she dresses.
Article was locked due to unrated source material, World Israel News is not rated by MBFC or Wikipedia.
Sure doesn't look locked to me...