Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar has a history of making comments insensitive to Jews, and it seems the Democratic party has no idea how to go about doing damage control.
Just days ago, she implied that Americans who support ally Israel have dual loyalties, an old anti-Semitic slur, for which she received some backlash.
But how much of that censure has come from within her own party, on an institutional level?
“Frustration among House Democrats simmered on Wednesday over Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) criticism of Israel, with lawmakers questioning how they should respond to the latest controversy surrounding the freshman lawmaker,” according to a report in The Hill on Wednesday.
“Progressive lawmakers and members of key minority caucuses argued that voting on a resolution implicitly aimed at Omar — one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress — played into GOP hands trying to exacerbate Democratic divisions.”
“House Democratic leaders began crafting a resolution over the weekend to condemn anti-Semitism in the wake of Omar’s latest comments. Wednesday’s meeting offered the first caucus-wide discussion since that measure began circulating.”
On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told a Politico reporter that Omar’s comments weren’t “intentionally anti-Semitic”:
PELOSI just told us she did not think @IlhanMN’s comments were “intentionally anti Semitic”
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 6, 2019
“A draft resolution began circulating on Monday that did not specifically name Omar, but states that the House ‘rejects anti-Semitism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.’ The resolution did state that “accusations of dual loyalty generally have an insidious, bigoted history.”
The House of Representatives might vote on such a resolution as early as Thursday this week, per The Hill, “but a plan has not been finalized.”
