Rep. Ilhan Omar’s, D-Minn., suggestion that supporters of Israel “push for allegiance to a foreign country” drew a stern rebuke from a senior Democratic lawmaker, who said his junior colleague should apologize for using “a vile anti-Semitic slur.”
“I welcome debate in Congress based on the merits of policy, but it’s unacceptable and deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow American citizens because of their political views, including support for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said Friday evening. “We all take the same oath. Worse, Rep. Omar’s comments leveled that charge by invoking a vile anti-Semitic slur.”
Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, was elected in the 2018 midterm elections and joined the panel overseeing the State Department in January. Her installment foreshadowed the arrival of an aggressive progressive voice on the committee, but Republicans faulted Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for handing the plum post to a new lawmaker with a history of controversial comments about Israel.
“Her comments were outrageous and deeply hurtful, and I ask that she retract them, apologize, and commit to making her case on policy issues without resorting to attacks that have no place in the Foreign Affairs Committee or the House of Representatives,” Engel said.
It’s the second time in less than a month that the New York Democrat, who tries to nurture a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy issues, especially concerning the alliance with Israel and the threats posed by Iran, has faulted her for trafficking in such tropes. “This episode is especially disappointing following so closely on another instance of Ms. Omar seeming to invoke an anti-Semitic stereotype,” he said.
Omar made the latest offending comments at a bookstore and coffee shop in D.C. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” she said, per Jewish Insider.
That comment came after she said she fears her religious affiliation gives her policy opponents a convenient way to avoid her arguments.
“What I’m fearful of [is] that a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim,” she said. “But it’s almost as if, every single time we say something regardless of what it is we say … we get to be labeled something. And that ends the discussion.”
Her remarks aren’t the only recent ones to garner criticism. Her suggestion on Twitter that U.S. lawmakers support Israel in the perennial feud with the Palestinians because of “the Benjamins” they receive from pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC prompted President Trump to call for her resignation from Congress. Pelosi also called for her to apologize for the tweet, which she did.
The coffee shop comments renewed that controversy, however. “The charge of dual loyalty not only raises the ominous specter of classic anti-Semitism, but it is also deeply insulting to the millions upon millions of patriotic Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, who stand by our democratic ally, Israel,” AIPAC tweeted Friday.
