Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (AP/Jim Mone) (AP/Jim Mone)
Ilhan Omar

United with Israel is among the sponsors of an important rally in New York demanding that Rep. Ilhan Omar be ousted from the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. If you’re in the region, be sure to attend!

By United with Israel Staff

A rally and press conference followed by a billboard launch will take place at Times Square in New York City demanding the removal of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, citing anti-Semitism and an anti-Israel, pro-Islamist agenda.

Many Americans have been shocked by comments she has made over the years that attacked Israel, included anti-Semitic tropes and questioned her loyalty to the United States of America.

In demanding her removal, the rally organizers cite her “gross anti-Semitism” and “cavalier dismissal” of the victims of 9/11, as well as her “blaming the criminal socialist debacle and collapse of Venezuela on America,” her “specious accusations against dedicated US officials, and her disdain for America, which saved her from Islamist terror in Somalia.”

Indeed, in February, Ilhan called to completely defund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, tweeting: “#Not1Dollar for DHS.”

Also that month, in an attack on the  American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” a reference to the $100 bill featuring Benjamin Franklin.

In an interview in January with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the Somali-American congresswoman, an active supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, defended a 2012 tweet in which she said that “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Omar blamed Israel for the round of airstrikes in which Hamas and Islamic Jihad shot some 700 rockets into the Jewish state earlier this month, killing four and wounding dozens, with Israel hitting over 350 Gazan targets in return.

Imam Mohamad Tawhidi, an Iranian-Australian Muslim religious leader and an outspoken critic of radical Islam, accuses U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib of being anti-Semitic Islamists.

They bring a “dangerous” extremist agenda to Congress, he stated.

Farrakhan, CAIR Among Omar’s Defenders

Among Omar’s defenders is the director of Government Affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that has been accused of harboring ties with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.  CAIR’s director, Hussam Ayloush, tweeted last year that the Middle East would be better off if Israel were “terminated.”

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite who recently referred to Jews as “termites,” praised Omar’s statements against Jews and Israel, encouraging her to “shake up that corrupt House.”

Last month, US President Donald Trump referred to Omar’s “anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements.”

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence recently renewed his call to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee based on her “anti-Semitic comments”; her statements attacking Israel, “our most cherished ally,” which “ought to be rejected by every American”; and her attempt to “blame the US for the deprivation and poverty brought on by the dictatorship in Venezuela.”

Omar’s “tweets were a disgrace [and] her apology was inadequate. Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Pence stated.

United with Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others have issued petitions or calls to action calling for her removal.

The rally and press conference begin at 5 p.m. on Monday, followed by a billboard launch at 6.