In a painfully lame attempt to shake off the antisemite label that has been firmly affixed to her forehead, Rep. Ilhan Omar insisted in an interview Sunday that she had no idea the multiple antisemitic comments she made were, in fact, antisemitic.
Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about her wading into antisemitic tropes with comments like, “Israel hypnotized the world” and that America’s support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins,” Omar pleaded ignorance, claiming she had no idea there was a trope about Jews and money – one of the most laughable things she could have said.
“I might have used words at the time that I didn’t understand were trafficking in anti-Semitism,” she said. “When that was brought to my attention, I apologized. I owned up to it. That’s the kind of person that I am, and I continue to work with my colleagues and my community to fight against anti-Semitism.”
A Jewish staffer for Omar couldn’t be reached for comment about the congresswoman’s true feelings about Jews – because she doesn’t have any Jewish staffers.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
19 Responses
It’s funny because the PLA are semites so she isn’t lying about antisemitism. Ask her if she is anti Jewish.
yishmaeli liar and epic piece of trash
Ilhan Omar’s lack of moral integrity in relationships is well known, and the fact that she continues to proudly wear her hijab and attack Israel in the name of Islam, has already shown us much of her hypocrisy and dishonesty.
Nice to see she is a coward. That is significant. Ilhan doesn’t deserve anything more than what we do. Tell her where she doesn’t belong
I think the last word should be left for gedolahhadorah or whatever her name is. She’ll tell us what the correct atheist Jewish Marxist response should be.
She is not the only person making these mistakes
Rabbi yehoshua cohn said that the knesset people going to the bies
mikdash makes anti semitism
…………….and she didn’t know that a woman cannot marry her own brother. She’s a lying piece of garbage. She is loyal to her home country, Somalia, but disloyal to America.
I saw the interview. The issue is simple: either you believe her or you don’t. I believe her. Just to be clear, I disagree with her on Palestinian issues.
Calling her a “liar” is redundant, since she has already admitted to being a politician.
huju,
Of course you believe her! You’re a sad little mah yafis and have never met a lefty anti-Semite you haven’t fallen head over heels in love with.
To Gadolha: I am not sad or little (6’0″, 260 lbs.). I don’t like any anti-Semites. I don’t like Ilhan Omar, though I don’t think she is anti-Semitic. It is too easy to call Palestinian supporters anti-Semitic.
huju,
Great, you’re a big fat happy mah yafis, just more food for the worms.
You’re so right, Palestinian supporters love Jews. Why their very motto, “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” just gushes with affection for us.
I don’t want to hear any more about antisemitic “tropes”. I don’t care if someone says something that “invokes an antisemitic trope”. All that means is that what one person said isn’t actually antisemitic, but it sounds like something a bunch of antisemites once said. And for some reason that makes it wrong.
No, Omar is not an antisemite because she used antisemitic tropes. She’s an antisemite because she hates Jews, and we know she hates Jews because she said actual antisemitic things. Not tropes.
Here’s an example of what I mean: If AIPAC were actually bribing congressmen to support Israel, then saying so would not be antisemitic merely because that’s an antisemitic “trope”. The reason it was antisemitic when she said it is because it wasn’t true.
Here’s a counter-example: The fact is that George Soros does lurk in the shadows manipulating world governments in order to achieve his goals. The fact that this is exactly what antisemites for over a century used to accuse the Rothschilds of doing doesn’t mean that telling the truth about Soros is antisemitic. Even if someone knows that Soros is a Jew (and many don’t), and even if someone also knows the history of antisemitic accusations against the Rothschilds (and again, many don’t), that is no reason to give Soros a pass.
Save the tropes for krias hatorah, and judge alleged antisemites by whether what they say and do actually betrays antisemitism.
Lostspark, that is not what antisemitism means. Antisemitism does not mean hating “Semites”; it means hating Jews. A Semite is anyone who speaks a Semitic language. Ivrit is a Semitic language, but Yiddish is not, so Jews who speak Yiddish but not Hebrew are not Semites. But those who hate them are antisemites, because that is what the word means.
Huju, yes, all supporters of the “Palestinian” cause, without exception, are antisemites. That is why it’s so easy to call them that.
There are only three non-antisemitic reasons why someone might oppose Israel; and all three would make that person also oppose the “Palestinians”. Therefore someone who supports them has some other reason, an antisemitic reason.
The three non-antisemitic grounds on which one can oppose Israel are anarchism, pacifism, and the Torah.
Anarchists oppose all states; Israel is a state, so obviously anarchists oppose it. But they oppose a “Palestinian” state too. And since a “Palestinian” state is guaranteed to be more oppressive than Israel, they oppose it more than they do Israel.
Pacifists oppose all violence, even in self defense. Therefore they oppose Israeli violence, and believe that Israel is wrong to defend itself. But of course they oppose even more the “Palestinian” offensive violence that causes Israel’s defensive violence. While they don’t condone or excuse Israel’s defensive violence, they can at least understand it.
And of course there are those who oppose Israel because they believe that it violates the terms of our golus; that returning as a nation to Israel and seizing power there is like a prisoner escaping from prison and returning to his home. But those people all agree that Eretz Yisroel is our home, so if they oppose us, the true owners, taking possession of it, then they must even more so oppose the “Palestinian” squatters stealing it for themselves. A “Palestinian” state is a far greater violation of the Torah than Israel is.
So anyone who supports the “Palestinians” is an antisemite.
@Milhouse: I would agree with everything you said except for the fact that there are some “chareidi” jews such as Neturei Karta who do support the Palestinians and a State of Palestine in place of Israel, (they wave Palestinian flags at rallies and they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them) as opposed to other anti-zionist chareidim such as Satmar who don’t. (satmar are anti-zionist but do not support the murderous palestinians)
I would not describe the NK as anti-Semites because they definitely aren’t, but they are a dangerous perversion of yiddishkeit and show themselves off as arrogant and “more righteous than thou” whenever you encounter them and their ideological verbiage.
I personally believe that most of this “Anti-Zionism” coming from certain factions of the chareidi world (and including sadly from many commenters here on ywn) comes from a lack of Emunah & Bitachon in דער אייבערשטער and a Laziness/Impatience to do Kiruv properly.
but still, definitely not anti-Semites
Baby Squirrel, the ones who use the name of Neturei Karta to support the “Palestinians” are a tiny handful of mentally ill people — perhaps 25 in the greater NY area, 25 in Europe, and 100 in Eretz Yisroel — who don’t represent anyone or anything. Their numbers are statistically equal to zero, and they’re no different from people who dress in white and think they are Moshiach or Yoshke, depending on which religion they grew up with (this is known as “Jerusalem Syndrome”), or the people who used to imagine they were Napoleon Bonaparte (I don’t know who they think they are nowadays). Objectively they are antisemites; their only excuse is that they belong in straitjackets and padded rooms.
PS: These people have so thoroughly dragged the name Neturei Karta through the mud that real NK members are now ashamed to use that name any more! One thing is for sure: Reb Amram Blau was an Ohev Yisroel, including zionists, and he would never allow anyone to use his name to become accomplices of the “Palestinian” rotzchim.