Omar’s official congressional portrait

Ilhan Omar (born October 4, 1981) is a Somali-American politician from Minnesota. In 2016, she was elected a Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, making her the first Somali-American legislator elected to office in the United States.

Quotes

Quotes about Ilhan Omar

• Fine, we’re all against anti-Semitism... We fought against anti-Semitism for years in that context of fighting against white supremacy and racism. But this isn’t about what she (Ilhan Omar) said... It’s about the fact that she is a Muslim African immigrant, a Somali refugee, who is talking about Palestinian rights, who is talking about the power of the Israel lobby, and the big pharma lobby, and the lobby for fossil fuels. And that’s not OK... And that’s why she’s facing death threats.
  • Ilhan Omar’s Denunciation of Israel Lobby is Not Anti-Semitism, interview with Phyllis Bennis, The Real News Network (5 March 2019)

• What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That’s wrong Anti-Semitism is a hateful and dangerous ideology which must be vigorously opposed in the United States and around the world. We must not, however, equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing, Netanyahu government in Israel.
  • Montreal Gazette, (7 March 2019) by Bernie Sanders

• A large number of proud Jewish Americans – raised to believe in civil liberties and open discussion – are appalled by the campaign to muzzle Rep. Ilhan Omar, as well as Speaker Pelosi’s role in it. We’re also appalled that human-rights-abusing Israel is virtually off-limits to debate.
• Most Jews – the likes of Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner excepted – empathize with the refugee experience. Only a rare few cannot be impressed by the life story of Ilhan Omar, who fled civil-war-torn Somalia and came to the U.S. as a refugee at age 12, knowing only two English phrases: “hello” and “shut up.” Now a Muslim Congresswoman, she’s recently faced hateful bias and threats.
• Rep. Omar has made a simple and undeniable point – that AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the funding it influences exert extraordinary power over Congress. Disputing that point is flat-earther terrain. The Capitol Hill farce of an “anti-hate” resolution would provide still more evidence on behalf of her argument. Unfortunately, all the vague media references to Rep Omar’s “anti-Semitic remarks” obscure how truthful and non-hateful those comments were.
  • Jeff Cohen: This Jew Tells Speaker Pelosi: “You May Well Prove Ilhan Omar Correct,” CounterPunch, (7 March 2019)

• We are Jews who stand with Representative Ilhan Omar. She has been falsely accused of anti-Semitism since tweeting that GOP threats against her and Representative Rashida Tlaib for criticizing Israel were “all about the Benjamins baby.” When asked to clarify who is paying members of Congress “to be pro-Israel,” Omar replied, “AIPAC!”
• There is absolutely nothing anti-Semitic about calling out the noxious role of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which spends millions each year to buy U.S. political support for Israeli aggression and militarism against the Palestinian people. As the NYC chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace summed up: "Accurately describing how the Israel lobby works in this country is not anti-Semitic. The never-ending smear campaign against Ilhan Omar is racism and Islamophobia in action.”
• There is no denying that money rules U.S. politics, and that powerful lobbies from the NRA to the fossil fuel lobby to AIPAC play destructive, anti-democratic roles in our political system, wielding money for legislative influence. The pro-Israel lobby has played an outsized role in producing nearly unanimous congressional support for Israel. It has organized a national campaign to suppress Palestinian activism on campuses, made the Israel Anti-Boycott Act a legislative priority, and for decades has boasted about their power to make or break political careers. To point out this reality is not anti-Semitic.
  • JewsWithIlhan.org An Open Letter: We are Jews Who Stand with Representative Ilhan Omar (6 March 2019)

• A freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the Israel Lobby... Any bill relating to Israel or to Jewish collective interests, like the currently fashionable topic of anti-Semitism, is guaranteed a 90% plus approval rating no matter what it says or how much it damages actual U.S. interests. Thursday’s 407 to 23 vote in the House of Representatives on a meaningless and almost unreadable “anti-hate” resolution was primarily intended to punish Ilhan Omar and to demonstrate that the Democratic Party is indeed fully committed to sustaining the exclusive prerogatives of the domestic Jewish community and the Jewish state.
  • Philip Giraldi : No, Dual Loyalty Isn't Okay, Many in congress and the media won’t discuss loyalty to Israel, Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review, (12 March 2019)

• Ilhan Omar has certainly been forced to apologize and explain her position as she is under sustained attack from the left, right and center as well as from the White House. One congressman told her that “Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable.” Another said “there are many reasons to support Israel, but there is no reason to oppose Israel” while yet another one declared that all in Congress are committed to insuring that the “United States and Israel stand as one.”
• But Omar has defended herself without abandoning her core arguments and she has further established her bona fides as a credible critic of what passes for U.S. foreign policy by virtue of an astonishing attack on former President Barack Obama, whom she criticized obliquely in an interview Friday, saying “We can’t be only upset with Trump. His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was. That’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.” Presumably Omar was referring to Obama’s death by drone program and his destruction of Libya, among his other crimes. Everything she said about the smooth talking but feckless Obama is true and could be cast in even worse terms, but to hear the truth from out of the mouth of a liberal Democrat is something like a revelation that all progressives are not ideologically fossilized and fundamentally brain dead. One wonders what she thinks of the Clintons?
  • Philip Giraldi :No, Dual Loyalty Isn't Okay, Many in congress and the media won’t discuss loyalty to Israel, Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review, (12 March 2019)

• Ilhan Omar is NOW the most important Member of the US Congress!
  • David Duke, twitter, 4:35 AM - Mar 8, 2019

• Someone in Congress finally asked a world-historical ghoul to answer for what he did... Of all the bloodthirsty think-tank Rambos that were wandering around... none of them were so bone-deep inhumanely repulsive as Elliot Abrams, whose main job was to enable death squads and cover up massacres.. Anyway, Abrams came before the House Foreign Relations Committee. It came time for Rep. Ilhan Omar to ask him questions. Congresswoman Omar, you may have noted, has had a rough couple of weeks. Nevertheless, she soldiered on and asked Abrams if they could discuss his resume for a bit. Abrams didn't seem to enjoy having his bona fides as a war criminal discussed by this... person “I’m not going to respond to that question, I’m sorry. I don’t think this entire line of questioning is meant to be real questions.” I think I speak for thousands of dead people in Central America when I thank Rep. Omar for allowing us to say, together, once again, and to the skull-like face of Elliott Abrams, "Man, fck that guy."
  • Charles P Pierce in Ilhan Omar's Cross-Examination of Elliot Abrams Honored Thousands of Central American Dead, Esquire (13 February 2019)

• Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, and Congresswoman Omar is, terrible what she said, I think she should either resign from Congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. What she said is so deep-seated in her heart, that her lame apology, and that's what it was, it was lame, and she didn't mean a word of it was just not appropriate. I think she should resign from Congress, frankly. But at a minimum, she shouldn't be on committees, certainly that committee.
  • Donald Trump, WATCH: Trump Calls On Anti-Semite Ilhan Omar To Resign From Congress, Daily Wire (12 February 2019)

• Pelosi and Schumer know damn well that @IlhanMN (Ilhan Omar) was not engaged in anti-semitism and they intentionally conflate criticizing AIPAC with attacking Judaism and Jewish people. Omar hit a tripwire and the full force of the party was brought down on her.
  • Jeremy Scahill Twitter (11 February 2019) (Relevancy?)

• Omar’s latest Jew-hatred isn’t the beginning of her story. In 2012 she tweeted: "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel." In 2013 she chuckled over Hamas and Hezbollah and suggested that the American military was akin to Al Qaeda. She supports the anti-Semitic BDS movement. She said last month that Israel cannot be a democracy and a Jewish state. She’s not hiding the ball here.
  • Ben Shapiro, The Democratic Party Has Become The Party Of Anti-Semitism. Here's Why. February 11 2019, Daily Wire

• This is all so ridiculous. It’s all based upon this demand that we indulge what everybody knows is an utter and complete fiction, which is that we’re allowed to talk about the power of the NRA in Washington, we’re allowed to talk about the power of the Saudis in Washington, we’re allowed to talk about the power of big pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street and Silicon Valley and the fossil fuel industry in Washington, but we’re not allowed to talk about an equally potent, well-organized and well-financed lobby that ensures a bipartisan consensus in support of... Israel, that the minute that you mention that lobby, you get attacked as being anti-Semitic, which is what happened to Congresswoman Omar... For a long time, the bipartisan piety was not just that the U.S. has to support Israel, but that, in particular, the effort to boycott Israel in protest of its occupation of Palestine is not just misguided, but anti-Semitic. That’s the official position of the Democratic Party, of Hillary Clinton, of Chuck Schumer, of every leading Democrat.
  • Glen Greenwald in Ilhan Omar’s Criticism of Israeli Lobby and AIPAC Is Not Anti-Semitic, Democracy Now, Truthout (11 February 2019)

• What the congresswoman said is very uncontroversial. Everyone knows AIPAC is an extremely intimidating lobby, just like the NRA is. There’s nothing wrong with pointing that out. There’s certainly nothing anti-Semitic about saying that, about criticizing the Israeli government for its aggression and militarism. And anybody who cares about Palestinians and about the ability of Muslims in the United States to be able to speak freely ought to be defending her.
  • Glen Greenwald in Ilhan Omar’s Criticism of Israeli Lobby and AIPAC Is Not Anti-Semitic, Democracy Now, Truthout (11 February 2019)

• If they had been wise, Israel’s friends, supporters and lobbyists in America might have held their peace. After the election of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to congress – both supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel...But no. The sky fell. She was “vicious” in her views, wrong on facts, potentially antisemitic, a “strategic threat” to Israel itself.... Is the boycott and divestment campaign against Israel which Alexander supports – along with congresswomen Tlaib and Omar – really “delegitimising” Israel, as her critics claim? Or is Israel delegitimising itself by confiscating land which does not belong to it? And if the brave and liberal members of America’s Jewish community who condemn Israel are regularly smeared as “self-hating Jews”, what does that make Alexander?
  • Robert Fisk in Why More Americans Are Breaking Their Silence on Israel, CounterPunch, (28 January 2019)

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