by Frank Holmes, reporter
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s long history of controversial statements about Jewish people and the nation of Israel just got longer—and she’s getting pushback from some unexpected sources, including one of the greatest sports figures of the last 30 years.
When billionaire investor Leon Cooperman announced he was supporting former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for president, Omar tweeted, “I wonder why” with an emoji deep in thought.
I wonder why? 🤔 https://t.co/fc2wx26oTA
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 9, 2019
Both Cooperman and Bloomberg are Jewish.
No one had to wonder why Omar said what she did: “You were dog whistling anti-Semitism. You sought to stir up Jew-hatred,” tweeted Mark Lewis, a prominent British lawyer.
Republicans said that Omar got off easy because she is a member of the Democrats’ socialist wing, the Squad, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Imagine the screams of ‘dog whistle’ from the media and the frantic denunciations from the ADL if this were a Republican,” said “non-binary” GOP commentator Chad Felix Greene.
Even an ultra-liberal sports legend criticized Omar’s latest anti-Semitic comment.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who broke the record by winning nine women’s singles trophies at Wimbledon, said Omar’s tweet reeked of “prejudice.”
“This is a wrong thing to say, Congresswoman,” Navratilova, a huge opponent of Donald Trump. wrote on Twitter. “Generalizing is wrong no matter which ‘group’ of people one talks about. It’s about assigning labels and I hate that.”
“I don’t like lumping people together” by “gender, religion, party, etc.,” she wrote. “I abhor any kind of prejudice.”
Still disagree and she needs to be more clear. I just really dislike bunching people together. It’s no different than people telling me to stay in my lane.
— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) November 10, 2019
Omar’s defenders tried to say everyone misunderstood her: She was really criticizing their billionaire mindset.
An Omar office spokesman told The New York Post—which is owned by Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch — that Omar really meant that “they’re both billionaires,” just “like the far-right demagogue who owns this tabloid.”
But when Bernie Sanders and AOC accused billionaire Jeff Bezos of “class solidarity” for encouraging Bloomberg to run for president, Omar didn’t say anything.
Bezos isn’t Jewish.
Omar has won a reputation as being one of the most anti-Semitic figures in D.C.
Earlier this year, she said American politicians only support Israel because rich Jews pay them off.
“It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,” she tweeted, but she later deleted it.
Omar also accused pro-Israeli congressmen of having an “allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country.”
Accusing Jews of “dual loyalty” is an old anti-Jewish conspiracy theory—and one that national Jewish rights groups called out.
“When prominent people or members of Congress spout anti-Semitic rhetoric, it gives a green light to others to repeat that rhetoric,” wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in “USA Today.”
To make matters worse, her latest tweet came last Saturday, just days before Omar’s appearance at the annual gala for CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations).
At last year’s annual CAIR dinner, Omar described the terrorist attack of 9/11 by saying, “Some people did something.”
Instead of apologizing, Omar played the victim. She said Jews were only offended because they hate Muslims like her and Rashida Tlaib.
“A lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim,” Omar told The Jewish Insider.
That’s not so much an apology as another anti-Semitic attack.
Bernie Sanders has tried to save Omar—who endorsed him for president—in an online article this week.
Sanders said he found it “very troubling” that “we are also seeing accusations of antisemitism used as a cynical political weapon against progressives. One of the most dangerous things Trump has done is to divide Americans by using false allegations of antisemitism, mostly regarding the US–Israel relationship.”
But Trump is far from alone in seeing bias behind Omar’s anti-Israel, anti-Jewish tweetstorms.
More than 237,000 people have signed a petition to “End Anti-Semitism in Congress” from the American Center for Law and Justice.
“Someone espousing these bigoted views should not have access to classified information or sit on congressional committees such as the Foreign Affairs Committee,” it says before it calls on Congress to bounce Omar out of her committee assignment.
True, the ACLJ was founded by President Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow.
But let’s face it: When even a left-wing sports star who hates the president doesn’t believe you, it’s game-set-match.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”