Hours After Joining the Congressional Black-Jewish Caucus, Ilhan Omar Expresses Support for Linda Sarsour
By once again standing shoulder to shoulder with anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour, Ilhan Omar demonstrated her goal was to undermine the bipartisan caucus she had just endorsed.
If nothing else, one thing most people would agree on about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is that when she wants to get a message across, she doesn’t waste any time.
Such was the case earlier this week when, on Wednesday evening, the freshman Congresswoman tweeted out support for a newly-formed bipartisan caucus for black and Jewish House members . . . and then sided with anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour in a Twitter war over one of the caucus’s Jewish founders just hours later.
Here’s a timeline of what went down:
On Monday, the American Jewish Community advocacy group officially announced the formation of the coalition:
BREAKING NEWS from #AJCGloFo: Reps. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and Lee Zeldin (R-NY) announce the launch of the bipartisan Congressional Black-Jewish Caucus, which AJC helped facilitate. pic.twitter.com/k4WotWBsLu
— American Jewish Committee (@AJCGlobal) June 3, 2019
The AJC also noted the purpose of the caucus:
The Caucus will raise awareness of each community’s sensitivities and needs, in Congress and out, and provide resources to members of Congress to empower them to bring African-American and Jewish communities together, combating stereotypes and hate and showcasing commonalities.
— AJC (@AJCGlobal) June 3, 2019
A couple of days after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) retweeted the news, Omar weighed in with a show of solidarity:
Last month, @janschakowsky and I joined together to talk about the common threat of white nationalism faced by Muslim, black and Jewish-Americans. Glad to see colleagues follow through in working on the things that unite us and not divide us ??https://t.co/KxGV0lnnGI https://t.co/ylJTjmjnxk
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 5, 2019
Upon seeing this, AJC Global’s assistant executive director Avi Mayer copied Omar’s tweet to Sarsour:
cc: @lsarsour https://t.co/oKAcLNUE2k
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) June 6, 2019
Sarsour responded by accusing Zeldin of “anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian” bigotry:
Lee Zeldin is still an anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian bigot who called Obama a racist & Zeldin campaigns with neo-Nazis & white supremacists. I will tweet this back to you a MILLION times while you continue to deflect your support for Zeldin. P.S. Muslim women don’t always agree. https://t.co/KyQj4Yhgpy
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) June 6, 2019
Not done, Mayer pushed back:
Linda, you repeatedly invoked @IlhanMN as your supposed reason for opposing this caucus that will bring Black and Jewish legislators together in common cause. Now that Rep. Omar has endorsed it without reservation, will you?
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) June 6, 2019
The next day, Jewish Insider reported that Omar’s spokesman confirmed she’d be joining the caucus:
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) will join the newly formed bipartisan, Congressional Black-Jewish Caucus, her spokesman Jeremy Slevin confirmed to Jewish Insider on Thursday.
Somewhere in the midst of officially joining the caucus and the back and forth tweets between Sarsour and Mayer, Omar noticed Mayer’s second tweet and made sure to let everyone know that she stood with Sarsour on the issue of caucus founder Rep. Lee Zeldin:
Just to be clear, my endorsement of the caucus and willingness to unite our communities against the threats of White supremacy isn’t an endorsement of Zeldin’s bigotry!
Linda’s point still remains valid but my hope here is that Zeldin can learn and grow. https://t.co/2Fp6znt353
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 6, 2019
Zeldin, who has not been shy in the past about condemning the anti-Semitic tropes frequently used by both Omar and her Congressional BFF Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), took a more measured approach.
Instead of pointing out that Omar had just demonstrated that her goal was to undermine the very bipartisan group she just joined, Zeldin instead suggested that she “be better”:
This new Caucus is a positive, bipartisan push to build bridges between 2 groups. Be helpful, accurate & better. Unite; don’t divide or try to poison like this latest personal attack. This is bigger than us & we have to be better than this. https://t.co/1Ai7jzScKp
— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) June 6, 2019
Except Omar has no intentions of being better, and she proved it on Friday with this racially-charged retweet:
Ironically enough, the idea of a bipartisan caucus was first suggested by Jewish groups who were concerned, in part, about the anti-Semitic rhetoric coming from Sarsour and Democrat members of Congress like Omar and Tlaib:
The new caucus followed multiple shootings at American synagogues as well as concern over remarks made by both Sarsour and Omar. The American Jewish Congress specifically called for a bipartisan group of Jewish lawmakers to form after Omar suggested that Israel had bought support from the U.S.
Shortly after the AJC’s announcement, Mayer noted that Sarsour’s panic over the formation of the group was a welcome sign:
.@lsarsour’s timeline contains no fewer than 17 panicked tweets about the new Congressional Black-Jewish Caucus, announced yesterday at #AJCGloFo. Nothing terrifies bigots like Linda Sarsour more than seeing minority communities joining hands in solidarity and partnership. ?
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) June 4, 2019
If ever there were proof that this new caucus is good and necessary, it’s that Linda Sarsour is terrified of it. Blacks and Jews in America share a long and proud history of standing with one another and fighting for each other’s rights. It’s time to return to our roots. pic.twitter.com/I0t8FDYNl0
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) June 4, 2019
While that’s true, it remains to be seen if Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a founding member of the new caucus and also a longtime member of the Louis Farrakhan-friendly Congressional Black Caucus, is listening.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
There’s Jews for peace and even pro BDS Jewish organizations, and even HAIS that wants to bring muslim refugees to a synagogue near you.
70% of US Jews voted for Obama twice, then for Hillary.
Now I think many would like to opt out of the Masada endgame, but not all. Some will give their lives or their liberty to their version of tikkun olam.
And those left will have to fix their fix.
America has cancer. This woman is one of the tumors.
Sorry, Congressman Zeldin, but there is no sense in being “bipartisan” with those who are against your right to go on breathing. The genocidal antsemitism of Omar and Sarsour is not some nervous tic or a phase they will grow out of, but deeply ingrained in their very being.
because of course she did: revoke her citizenship and send her back to her native paradise on earth.
But we’d have to give up all the positive contributions that Omar and other Somalians make to America! It would be a terrible loss, though I suppose we could survive.
US citizenship, once legitimately obtained, cannot be revoked.
Black-Jewish Caucus…Antiochus Epiphanes was ahead of his time.
A little over a year ago Jewish leaders in MI tried to find ‘common ground’ with the Maoist-Khmer-Rouge bigot Omar only to be rebuffed.
And more than a year later what do the majority of democrat party Jews do? They either sit on their hands or form ‘working’ groups with these fifth columnist monsters. If such a thing works to improve relations between groups then why didn’t they do the same with David Duke all those years ago? Seems quite odd to me. Actually it’s all bull.
Co-opting won’t work. They darn well know what Omar is. They are deeply afraid of these New Women and we all see it.
And all the while both factions within the demicrat party continue to advance the notion that there’s a huge population of white supremacists here in the US just itching to create the Fourth Reich of America.
Who is fooling who?
Jews need to accept that some people are defective and not salvageable. Generally, those people need tough love until they understand that they must become productive citizens and that the rest of us do not need to do anything else to accommodate them.
Omar, Tlaib, OAC: enemy insurrectionists
Linda doesn’t like it when her BFFs hang out with other groups.
What does that even mean? Can someone translate it into English?