Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan will be the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the US Congress. Most of the media coverage since their election on November 6 has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history.
Congresswomen Ilhan Abdullahi Omar not only was sworn into office with her hand on the Qu'ran, but in addition to that, the American flag was not allowed to be in the same room as her. When Rashida Harbi Tlaib was sworn in, she wrapped herself in the flag of the imaginary nation of Palestine, and danced around the room. And oh yeah, almost forgot, both women only pretended to be moderates in order to get elected. In actuality, they hate Israel with a passion and support
the BDS Movement.
"Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion." Psalm 129:5 (KJV)
Ironically, American Jews voted in overwhelming numbers for both Ilhan Abdullahi Omar and Rashida Harbi Tlaib. How will Omar and Tlaib thank them for their support? By voting against funding for Israel, by supporting the
BDS Movement, and have vowed to work to replace the Jewish state of Israel with a unitary Palestinian state.
FROM GATESTONE INSTITUTE: Less known is that both women deceived voters about their positions on Israel. Both women, at some point during their rise in electoral politics, led voters — especially Jewish voters — to believe that they held moderate views on Israel. After being elected, both women reversed their positions and now say they are committed to sanctioning the Jewish state.
America's first two Muslim congresswomen are now both on record as appearing to oppose Israel's right to exist. They both support the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Both are also explicitly or implicitly opposed to continuing military aid to Israel, as well as to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — an outcome that would establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Instead, they favor a one-state solution — an outcome that many analysts believe would, due to demographics over time, replace the Jewish state with a unitary Palestinian state.
Ilhan Omar, who will replace outgoing Rep. Keith Ellison (the first Muslim elected to Congress) in Minnesota's 5th congressional district, came to the United States as a 12-year-old refugee from Somalia and settled in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, in the late 1990s.
In her acceptance speech, delivered without an American flag, Congresswoman-elect Omar opened her speech in Arabic with the greeting, "As-Salam Alaikum, (peace be upon you), alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah), alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah." She continued: "I stand here before you tonight as your congresswoman-elect with many firsts behind my name. The first woman of color to represent our state in Congress. The first woman to wear a hijab. The first refugee ever elected to Congress. And one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress."
Omar faced some controversy during the campaign, including a disturbing reports that she had married her own brother in 2009 for fraudulent purposes, as well as a tweet from May 2018 in which she refers to Israel as an "apartheid regime," and another tweet from November 2012, in which she stated: "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
After the tweets came to light, Omar met with members of her congressional district's large Jewish population to address concerns over her position on Israel, as reported by Minneapolis's Star Tribune. During a Democratic Party candidates' forum at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park on August 6 — one week before Omar defeated four other candidates in the party's primary — Omar publicly criticized the anti-Israel BDS movement. In front of an audience of more than a thousand people, Omar said she supported a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and that the BDS movement aimed at pressuring Israel was not helpful in trying to achieve that goal.
Pressed by moderator Mary Lahammer to specify "exactly where you stand on that," Omar replied that the BDS movement was "counteractive" because it stopped both sides from coming together for "a conversation about how that's going to be possible."
Less than a week after being elected, however, Omar admitted that she supports the BDS movement. On November 11, Omar's office told the website MuslimGirl.com that she favors BDS against Israel:
"Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people's right to support it isn't criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution."
On November 12, Omar told TC Jewfolk, a website catering to the Jewish community in the Twin Cities, that her position on the BDS movement "has always been the same" and pointed to her vote as a state lawmaker against House bill HF 400, which prohibits the state from doing business with companies or organizations that boycott Israel.
In a recent interview with the Star Tribune, Omar characterized the controversy over her tweets about Israel as an effort to "stigmatize and shame me into saying something other than what I believed."
In a July 8, 2018 interview with ABC News, for a segment entitled, "Progressive Democrats Increasingly Criticize Israel, and Could Reap Political Rewards," Omar defended her tweets. She said the accusations of anti-Semitism "are without merit" and "rooted in bigotry toward a belief about what Muslims are stereotyped to believe."
On September 22, Omar was the keynote speaker in Minneapolis at a fundraiser focused on providing monetary support for Palestinians in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas. The US Department of State has officially designated Hamas a terrorist group. After the event, Omar tweeted:
Writing in the New York Post, political commentator David Harsanyi noted that Omar's rhetoric had anti-Semitic undertones:
"Now, it isn't inherently anti-Semitic to be critical of Israeli political leadership or policies. The Democratic Party antagonism toward the Jewish state has been well-established over the past decade. But Omar used a well-worn anti-Semitic trope about the preternatural ability of a nefarious Jewish cabal to deceive the world....
"Omar had a chance to retract, or at least refine, her statement. Instead, she doubled down ... blaming Jewish Islamophobia for the backlash....
"To accuse the only democratic state in the Middle East, which grants more liberal rights to its Muslim citizens than any Arab nation, of being an 'apartheid regime' is, on an intellectual level, grossly disingenuous or incredibly ignorant. And when a politician singles out Jewish allies as 'evil,' but ignores every brutal theocratic regime in the area, it's certainly noteworthy....
"Omar's defenders will claim she's anti-Israel, not anti-Jewish. 'Anti-Zionism' has been the preferred justification for Jew-hatred in institutions of education and within progressive activism for a long time. Now it's coming for politics. Democrats can either allow it to be normalized, or they can remain silent."
In Michigan, meanwhile, Rashida Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, won a largely uncontested race for the open seat in state's heavily Democratic 13th congressional district.
In Tlaib's acceptance speech, delivered with a Palestinian flag, she credited her victory to the Palestinian cause. "A lot of my strength comes from being Palestinian," she said.
Like Omar, Tlaib has changed her positions on key issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During her race for the Democratic nomination in the state primary, Tlaib actively "sought out the support and received the endorsement of J Street." J Street is a left-leaning organization that is highly critical of the Israel government, and through "JStreetPAC," it also allocates financial support to those who back J Street's policies.
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