Rep. Ilhan Omar responded to Meghan McCain’s appearance on “The View” by retweeting a tweet by an Al Jazeera host who slammed McCain’s “faux outrage.”
Meghan’s late father literally sang ‘bomb bomb bomb Iran’ and insisted on referring to his Vietnamese captors as ‘gooks’. He also, lest we forget, gave the world Sarah Palin.
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) March 7, 2019
So a little less faux outrage over a former refugee-turned-freshman-representative pls. https://t.co/zH6VZxBYc4
McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, became emotional on the ABC show Thursday as the hosts discussed Omar.
“With the rise of anti-Semitism in this country, is it more important to defend party politics, or is it more important to defend anti-Semitism?” said McCain, referring to the Minnesota Democrat.
“We can have conversations all day long about how you feel about Palestinian politics, Israeli politics, how you feel about (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu. … I just present this question, which may be an uncomfortable one: If what Ilhan Omar has been saying for the past few weeks were said by a white Republican male, how would you be reacting to it right now?”
“On both sides it should be called out,” she said about hate crimes in the US.
“And just because I don’t technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn’t mean that I don’t take this as seriously, and it is very dangerous, very dangerous. … What Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me,” she said.
“And it’s very scary to a lot of people, and I don’t think you have to be Jewish to recognize that.”
But just hours after the House voted in favor of an anti-hate resolution that was designed to calm the growing uproar over the congresswoman’s comments, her retweet threatens to foment more vitriol on both sides of the aisle.
Background and bipartisan criticism:
Representative Ilhan Omar issued an apology last month after a flurry of bipartisan criticism over her controversial tweets.
“We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism,” she wrote, “This is why I unequivocally apologize.”
Her tweets last month were loaded with stereotypes about Jews and money, according to critics.
“It's All About the Benjamins baby,” she tweeted, regarding support for Israel.
After a follower asked who's paying American politicians to support Israel, Omar responded, “AIPAC.”
The American Israel public affairs committee has been frequently accused by opponents of fomenting hatred for Iran.
Hours later, the House Democratic Leadership called Omar's tweets “offensive” and demanded she apologizes.
Republican critics suggest it's all part of an evolution of the Democratic party's embrace of racial identity politics.
