The Democratic congresswoman says she has always been somebody who ‘understands how words can be harmful and hurtful to people.’ We believe her.
The Jews can never seem to live up to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) exacting standards.
The Minnesota congresswoman’s latest broadside came Tuesday afternoon, when she told CNN’s Jake Tapper that her Jewish Democratic colleagues “haven’t been partners in justice” and have yet to apologize for their allegedly Islamophobic comments.
Omar’s statement came after Tapper asked whether she regrets her comments last month comparing the United States and Israel with terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Taliban. Her answer was unequivocal: “I don’t.”
That’s funny, because Omar at the time “clarified” that statement, which elicited a rebuke from Democratic leaders and a dozen Jewish Democrats, saying that she did not say what in fact she said: “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries.” To be clear, she also believes Israel is a terrorist nation.
Omar, as the kids say, is owning her truth. Her tap dance follows a pattern that is by now well established, in which the justice-seeking congresswoman makes nakedly prejudicial remarks, pretends to walk them back in the face of muted criticism from her colleagues, characterizes the criticism itself as Islamophobic, and proceeds to reoffend.
That pattern gives the lie to the apology Omar issued after arguing that American support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins, baby”: Her offenses were born of ignorance rather than prejudice, she said, and thanked her colleagues for “educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”
