This past week, her virulent anti-Semitism was set in proverbial stone. Bethany Mandel at the Washington Examiner breaks it down.
During her campaign, the Minnesota Democrat insinuated she was against the boycott, divest and sanctions movement, a supposedly pro-Palestinian protest movement awash in anti-Semitism. But after taking office, she came out in favor of BDS.
In explaining her about-face, her campaign offered, “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.”
Hold on: Omar believes that Israel should be boycotted and punished but doesn’t believe that it will have any effect on the conflict? Why engage in these punitive acts if they won’t make a difference?
The answer is simple: to punish Israel. Omar believes Israel deserves to be singled out above other countries and held to a different standard because it is the only Jewish state in the world.
If Omar’s concern was truly for the Palestinian people and her support for anti-Israel sanctions was truly humanitarian in origin, she would surely vote in favor of a bill to sanction Turkey because of their horrific actions against the Kurdish people. But Omar’s concern clearly isn’t for human rights — on Tuesday, she was the only Democrat to vote against sanctions targeting Turkey.
And if that wasn't bad enough, she was one of only three members voting "present" on a resolution recognizing Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey in the 20th century. Omar's office put out a statement explaining her vote.
Omar's office has sent this statement to CNN explaining her present vote: pic.twitter.com/Gpj198jx0p— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) October 29, 2019
It was at this point where Rep. Omar connected the dots for us. Back to Mandel:
Given the opportunity between calling out a serial bad actor on the world stage and a perpetrator of the first state-driven genocide in the modern era, Omar chose instead to set up an American straw man to burn in effigy instead. And given the opportunity to punish the same state for its human rights violations in the present day, Omar broke with her entire caucus and refused. The congresswoman has officially shown us who she is.
With Omar’s votes this week on Turkey, the motivations behind her stance on BDS becomes crystal clear. Omar's anti-Semitism isn’t limited to her Twitter account. It is now documented in her voting record in Congress, too.
You have to wonder how long the residents of CD5 will continue to endure a representative who continually embarrasses them on a regular basis. I get that the district is a lost cause to any non-DFL candidate, but certainly there has to be a potential replacement who is aligned with Omar ideologically but without the serial bigotry.
This is similar to what my home Congressional District (MN CD6) faced back in 2012. After barely being reelected to a fourth term in the U.S. House (a campaign which required spending seven figures in the reddest CD in the state for a paltry 0.5% margin of victory), GOP rep Michele Bachmann got the message from voters and thus chose to forgo another reelection bid. Once she stepped aside, it was a forgone conclusion that any new Republican candidate would win handily. As such, Tom Emmer, who was first elected in 2014, has never won by less than an 18% margin. The dynamic is a little different in CD5 as Omar will never have to worry about such a close call in a general election. But that said, a credible challenger in a DFL primary would certainly go on to win the general should he/she best Omar.
Until then, the GOP needs to weaponize Omar against the left the way Dems used to paint Bachmann as the id of Republicans.
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