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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) fired back at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday after he renewed his threat to remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for what he described as “repeatedly anti-Semitic and anti-Semitic”. -American comments.
McCarthy, who is seeking to become speaker of the House in January, repeated the vote several times over the weekend, including during a television interview and during an appearance before a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. Republicans are poised to claim a narrow majority in the House in the next Congress.
“McCarthy’s effort to repeatedly single me out for contempt and hatred, including threatening to remove me from my committee, does nothing to address the issues our constituents are dealing with,” Omar said in a communicated
“What it does is breed fear and hatred against Somali-Americans and anyone who shares my identity, and further divides us along racial and ethnic lines,” he added. “It’s the continuation of a sustained campaign against Muslim and African voices, people his party has tried to ban since Donald Trump first ran for office.”
If McCarthy is elected president, he would not have the unilateral power to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. A plenary vote would be required.
McCarthy tweeted a clip from his appearance in Las Vegas on Saturday night, in which he said he was “keeping the promise” to take down Omar.
“I remember what he said about Israel,” McCarthy told the crowd. “I remember what he said about the relationship. I remember it so much that I promised you last year that, as speaker, I would no longer be in Foreign Affairs. I am keeping that promise.”
Omar has been accused of anti-Semitic comments on several occasions.
In early 2019, as a freshman, he apologized for suggesting that Israel’s allies in American politics were motivated by money rather than principle.
A tweet in which he said “it’s all about baby Benjamins” — a reference to $100 bills — drew immediate denunciations from Republicans and fellow Democrats, especially Jewish members of Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic leadership called Omar’s “use of anti-Semitic tropes and damaging accusations about supporters of Israel” deeply offensive and urged him to sorry.
“Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful to Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me about the painful history of anti-Semitic troops,” Omar said at the time. “It is never my intention to offend my constituents or American Jews as a whole. … For that I apologize unequivocally.”
On Monday, Omar accused the GOP of hypocrisy for allowing anti-Semitism in its ranks, noting that McCarthy accused wealthy Jewish liberals of trying to “buy” the 2018 election. And Islamophobia and xenophobia Some of the most influential Republicans in the country, Omar said, have endangered the life and safety of one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress on numerous occasions.
“Whether it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene holding a gun to my head in campaign ads or Donald Trump threatening to ‘send me’ to my country (despite being a proud US citizen for over 20 years). ) , this constant flow of hate has led to hundreds of credible death threats and conspiracies against me and my family,” he said in his statement.
“At the same time, they have openly tolerated anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim hatred and racism in their own party,” Omar added.
In February 2021, the House voted along party lines to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee duties in rebuke for advocating extremist beliefs.
Greene had been an outspoken supporter of the QAnon ideology, a sprawling and violent network of false claims that played a role in inspiring the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. He had also made comments on suggesting that some mass shootings were carried out by gun control supporters, that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by government forces, and that a Jewish cabal had started a deadly forest fire with a space beam.
McCarthy has indicated that Greene will get his preferred committee assignments when the GOP is in the majority in January.
In October, Trump attacked American Jews in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying that Jews in the United States needed to “get their act together” and show more appreciation for the state of Israel. before it’s too late.”
American Jews have long been accused of maintaining a secret allegiance to Israel rather than the United States, and Trump’s post played on this anti-Semitic trope, suggesting that by virtue of their religion, American Jews should to show more love for Israel.
Trump also complained in the post that “no president” has done more for Israel than he has, but that evangelical Christians appreciate that “much more than people of the Jewish faith, especially those who live in the US.”