Poison

This past November, the mid-term elections saw the first two Muslim women in history elected to the US House of Representatives, Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota). The honor of being elected and the prestige accompanying the office presented each of them the opportunity to showcase their skills and be positive role models for others facing the same life challenges they have. Only 2 months into their 24-month terms, they have each already jettisoned that golden opportunity. It may not be fair, but because they are both Muslim, Tlaib and Omar entered office with a much narrower margin for error than any of their fellow House members in what they say or write publicly. Displaying the antithesis of caution, their aggressive statements and defiant behavior are reviving the worst post 9/11 Muslim stereotype – religious zealots motivated by hatred. Congresswoman Omar has done the most damage in this regard and is the subject of the remainder of this article.

Ilhan Omar was born in Somalia where she lived until the age of 10 when her family fled to Kenya for four years to escape the Somali civil war. She was the youngest of 7 siblings and was raised by her father and grandfather (her mother died when Ilhan was 2). Her family was approved to resettle in the US as refugees in 1995 when she was 14 and they eventually decided to live in Minnesota. She graduated from the University of North Dakota with a Political Science degree and after spending some time in Minnesota state politics, ran for and won the open US House seat in her Minnesota district this past November.

So far, Congresswoman Omar has used the stature of her office to project repeated disdain for Israel which appears to be part of her long-running hatred of that country and its religion. She’s made anti-Semitic statements both during and prior to her election to Congress, most notably in 2012 with this twitter post – “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” Lately, she’s been smart enough to camouflage her words so they are not direct expressions of bigotry like the above 2012 tweet, but it is an intentionally thin veneer. Her choice of context when making anti-Semitic statements, along with her patronizing tone plainly reveal her true intent.

Despite her behavior she has now collected a small group of supporters, including four US Senators running for President in 2020. They argue she is merely speaking out against one political party in Israel, and not condemning the entire country and culture of Israel. This is patently ridiculous, but an expected result of her carefully chosen words which are allowing her to express hatred towards Israel and at the same time be interpreted as having a simplistic political connotation. The effort to defend her is so amateurishly transparent it is comical.

This kind of behavior by any member of Congress would normally be dealt with immediately by the leadership. In this case however, because other democrat members of Congress as well as a few high-profile senators are actually defending Omar, the leadership is not just contending with one bad actor. In addition, Omar’s religion, gender, and compelling early life story have “trapped” the leadership inside their own self-created political correctness prison. So as not to have Omar’s toxic rhetoric be associated with the party in general, the Democrat leadership wanted to officially “condemn” Omar’s anti-Semitism in a resolution to be voted on by all members of Congress. This should have been a quick and easy procedure. Instead, Omar’s supporters insisted the Congresswoman’s name be stricken from the resolution and forced the text to be watered down so it would equally denounce all “hate”. Anti-Semitism became a mere footnote. After the vote, both Omar and Tlaib disingenuously ignored the resolution’s original intent, and pretended that its focus was anti-Muslim bigotry. This was a clear and obvious slap in the face to those who originally crafted the resolution purely as a rebuke of Omar’s anti-Semitic comments. Omar has in effect “weaponized” the resolution to the opposite purpose for which it was intended. In the process, the Congresswoman has emerged as a warrior of sorts, but for an ominous cause. With the milquetoast response of the democrat party leaders, we are certain to see more of Representative Omar’s bigoted agenda appear in future.

Astonishingly, Omar still occupies a position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. We can see the logic of why she was appointed to this committee at the start of the Congressional term back in January. At that point, she had not yet made any anti-Semitic statements as a US Congresswoman, and we suppose the Democrat leadership assumed the honor attendant upon the position would temper her expression. Additionally, she was not a lightning rod for media attention at that time. The committee would benefit in several ways by having a Muslim woman who was born in a foreign country among its members. That optic alone was enough to justify her presence. But her actions since have not only de-legitimized her membership, but also the purpose of the committee itself. The House Foreign Affairs Committee was never intended to be a platform for spreading religious hate or animus to another country regardless of which party was in control. Her membership should have been terminated the instant she made her first bigoted statement. It was not. And now that her public profile has been raised (for all the wrong reasons), it has become politically difficult for the Democrat leadership to remove her from the committee without suffering repercussions from her supporters.

We’ve stopped short of using the word “evil” to describe Congresswoman Omar only because of the likelihood that some of what is driving her behavior is the intoxicating stardom conferred upon her by all the media attention. Much like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she knows she has the spotlight and doesn’t want to lose it. Unlike Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez however, she got the spotlight by way of bigoted ugly statements against another country and its religion, not provocative policy ideas (like the Green New Deal).

It amazes us how one person in a brief instant in time can single handedly set back years of progress on a civic and/or social issue. The average American’s perception of the Muslim religion and its members hit a very deep low point on 9/11/2001. The altering of that perception has been slow and difficult. We are referring to the negative gut feeling many Americans still have when they hear the word Muslim. While that gut feeling has moderated some with the passage of time, it is our opinion that Congresswoman Omar is now reversing that recovery for many Americans. For some Americans who still haven’t moved away from that deeply dim view of Muslims since 9/11/2001, Omar’s protestations only give them more reason to stay entrenched.

In the next election, there will for the first time be voters who were not yet born on 9/11/2001. Their knowledge of that tragedy will come entirely from history books, the media, their parents and older sibs. They will not have a knot in their gut like many of the rest of us still have. Hopefully they will be smart enough to spot genuine bigotry in political candidates. Without the visceral sting of 9/11 lurking in their bellies, they may even be more clear-eyed when the choice includes Muslim candidates.

For us, Congresswoman Omar is stirring the wrong pot. Not only is she unnecessarily stoking tensions with Israel and by extension Jewish -Americans, she is re-awakening ugly suspicions which correctly or not, many Americans still attach to Muslims even 18 years after 9/11. As the title of this article says – she is poison.