After her last (of many) forays into antisemitism, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar promised to learn about “the painful history of antisemitic tropes.”
Yet in a recent mailer sent out to her district, Omar lambasts her opponent Antone Melton-Meaux in the upcoming primaries as being “in the pocket of Wall Street.” She then singles out his donors, who curiously, are all Jewish.
As reported by Vice,
“By solely mentioning Jewish donors by name while painting Melton-Meaux as being in their “pocket” to do their bidding on financial issues, her campaign’s mailer makes an argument that critics see as an anti-Semitic trope — especially in light of her string of previous controversial remarks about Israel.
“My immediate thought when I saw the mailer was ‘Here we go again.’ This had both implicit and explicit anti-Semitic tropes,” said Rabbi Avi Olitzky of Minneapolis’ Beth El Synagogue.
“Most disappointing were the presence of tropes that we’d personally discussed [previously] as hurtful, as offensive, and that I received a commitment not only would it not happen again but education would take place to learn more as to why it’s a problem,” Olitzky added. “I am beyond dismayed that especially in the heat of the primary season, such nuanced hate still rises to campaign literature.”
Olitzky publicly defended Omar in the past, as well as criticized her.
Since her election to office, Omar has engaged in numerous antisemitic statements and tropes. Two days after she was elected, she changed her opinion and declared she supported the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel despite stating during the campaign that she was against the movement.
In July 2019, Omar even introduced a resolution in Congress promoting BDS. Based on the State Department’s definition of antisemitism, the BDS movement has been deemed at its core an antisemitic movement.
In an interview in May, the congresswoman claimed she had “moved past” the controversy of her previous antisemitic slurs.
Those slurs included a February 2019 tweet that commented on the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. “It’s all about the Benjamins baby 🎶,”Omar tweeted, referring to Jewish money (“Benjamins” being $100 bills) and its assumed influence on American politicians, a classic antisemitic slur.
In May, she acknowledged that “those things [were] hurtful to people” and that “[it] has really broken my heart.”
Ironically, in the same interview, she invoked the same antisemitic trope: that Jewish money wields untold power and influence over American politics, and specifically over President Trump.
While one of Omar’s Jewish supporters acknowledged that this latest campaign mailer was insensitive, “sloppy work” that her staff should not have allowed to go out “without critical review,” given her history, the fact that such sentiments could even be on the table speaks for itself.
