Is Ilhan Omar the New Standard-Bearer for Democrats?

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From even before her election to Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has targeted Jewish Americans, demonized America’s allies, and apologized for terrorists—only to be shielded time and again by others in the Democratic Party. Now, however, the present Democratic leadership has decided to make matters worse, slandering those who stand up to her bigotry and asserting that this racist is, instead, a victim of racism. This represents a dangerous turning point for America.

Omar ignited her latest firestorm by posting to X, during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent visit to Washington, that he is a “war criminal” that Congress should not “platform.” This, of course, is a European slander of the man leading the effort to rescue innocent hostages and eliminate the genocidal threat posed by Hamas.

But when it comes to demonization of Jews, Omar is nothing if not consistent. Shortly after coming to Congress, she claimed that colleagues who support Israel are “all about the Benjamins,” recalling a classic antisemitic trope. Just last year she denounced Jewish students opposing pro-Hamas protest activity as “pro-genocide.” And in an eerie parallel to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, she once argued that Israel has “hypnotized the world.”

She is equally an apologist for terror. In 2019, she lied to protect the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), asserting that it was founded after 9/11, a day when, in her words, “some people did something,” rather than years earlier at the behest of the Muslim Brotherhood. And in 2021, she equated the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, claiming all have committed “unthinkable atrocities.”

Throughout her time in Congress, Democrats have avoided meaningful discipline, much less expelling Omar from their party. In 2019, they deliberately sidestepped a resolutioncondemning her antisemitic statements, passing a meaningless alternative opposing not just antisemitism, but “anti-Muslim bigotry” as if it were somehow of equal concern. The resolution was so pathetic that Omar herself voted in favor, while Jewish Republicans either opposed or missed the vote. Democrats refused to address hatred among their own as Republicans repudiated David Duke, or even Steve King, who insisted his offensive remarks were mischaracterized.

From the outset, some, including her colleagues in the infamous “Squad,” used Omar’s own identity characteristics to shield her from criticism. It was always nonsensical: did David Duke, the former KKK Grand Wizard, praise her because she was Black, a Muslim, a woman, or a refugee? No, he endorsed her words because she, like he, spreads hatred of Jews. But until now, at least, one never saw leaders in her party so cynically protect her from well-deserved denunciation.

But when Rep. Randy Fine excoriated her bigotry in denigrating terms, House Democratic leadership not only defended Omar, but condemned Fine as if he were the problem. Fine, who calls himself the “Hebrew Hammer,” recently started wearing a Kipah, a Jewish skullcap, in Congress, not because he is particularly religious but because students at too many universities are afraid to wear one today. And when he saw Omar’s hateful attack on Netanyahu, he responded that “I’m sure it is difficult to see us welcome the killer of so many of your fellow Muslim terrorists. The only shame is that you serve in Congress.”

Did he exaggerate? Perhaps. But as she serves as one of America’s foremost apologists and propagandists for Islamic terrorists both in the Middle East and here in the United States, calling her a Muslim terrorist isn’t off by much. And it was certainly not an attack on her religion, but her support for the all-too-real phenomenon of radical Islamic terrorism.

Yet rather than focus on Omar’s outrageous slander, House Democrats rushed to condemn Fine instead, claiming his words were “bigoted,” “Islamophobic,” and yet more obscenely, “racist.” Not a word of censure for Omar. No demand for accountability. Just more political theater to protect their own. When a Jew dared to stand up against Omar’s vicious Jew-hatred, Democratic leaders came down firmly on the side of the bigot.

In 2018, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks delivered this admonition in an address before Great Britain’s House of Lords:

Antisemitism, or any hate, becomes dangerous when three things happen. First: when it moves from the fringes of politics to a mainstream party and its leadership. Second: when the party sees that its popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby. And three: when those who stand up and protest are vilified and abused for doing so.

He was not speaking about American politics. Yet the applicability of his statement is obvious.

From the moment Omar was appointed to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Coalition for Jewish Values, which I serve as Executive Vice President, warned then-Speaker Pelosi that her appointment was “tantamount to saying that anti-Semitism is acceptable to the United States House of Representatives.” Only a month later, after Omar’s first antisemitic outburst as a congresswoman, we saidthat to maintain her appointment was “tolerating this hatred in the Democratic party.” And when, two years later, Omar made accusations against Israel that paralleled the medieval blood libel, we securedhundreds of rabbinic signatures on a letter accusing Pelosi of “acceptance of bigotry and an abdication of leadership.”

With its latest statement, the current House Democratic Leadership has confirmed each and every criticism delivered in our earlier letters. Our statements were in no way overstated or alarmist, they merely foresaw the inevitable result of Pelosi’s silence.

The recent Democratic primary victory of Zohra Mamdani in New York — an open extremist who, like Omar, has refused to condemn Islamic terrorism and parrots anti-Israel propaganda — is further proof that the radicalization of the Democratic Party is no longer a fringe problem. It is the direction of the party: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is considered likely to defeat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should she vie for his seat in the Senate.

Omar has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with today’s progressive movement: divisive, dangerous, and morally broken. It is long past time for Democrats to reject that movement, its Squad, and all it represents — or for the American voters to reject the party that sanctions such hatred among its elected representatives.

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Rabbi Yaakov Menken is the Executive Vice President of Coalition for Jewish Values and an appointed Board Member of the President Donald J. Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission