Friday June 11th 2021
Outrage over Muslim woman
Congresswoman equates USA with Taliban
A Muslim Congresswoman equates the US and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban. Now there is criticism against the democrat, also from within her own ranks.
The Muslim US MP Ilhan Omar caused outrage with critical statements about Israel and the US. Both Republican and Democratic politicians sharply criticized the Democrat for statements in which she compared the two countries to the radical Islamic Taliban and Hamas. Especially from the ranks of the Republicans came calls for sanctions against the 38-year-olds.
Omar, who was elected to Congress in 2016 as the first Muslim woman, pestered US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a hearing on Monday with questions about the United States’ responsibility for victims of crimes against humanity. She then wrote on Twitter: “We have seen unimaginable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.”
A group of Jewish Democrats then wrote an open letter in which they described “the equation of the United States and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban” as “as offensive as it is misguided”. “We urge Congressman Omar to make her words clear.”
Criticism also from the top of their own party
Open disapproval also came from its own party leadership, including Speaker of Parliament Nancy Pelosi. “Incorrect comparisons between democracies like the US and Israel and groups that participate in terrorism” are counterproductive for peace and security in the Middle East and the US, said the six-member Democratic group chairmanship.
Numerous Republicans were more vehement in criticism. Omar “anti-Semitic & anti-American comments are hideous,” said Conservative MP Kevin McCarthy. Without consequences for Omar, the Democrats would signal that they “tolerate anti-Semitism and sympathize with terrorists”.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton suggested to Omar that she could leave the United States if she found the country so hateful. The 38-year-old comes from Somalia and came to the USA as a refugee in the 1990s and was later naturalized. It was not the first time that, with sharp criticism of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, she reaped headwinds from within her own ranks.
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