Rep. Omar removed from the from Foreign Affairs Committee

Post Reply New Topic

House Republicans have voted to remove Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, citing past controversial comments she made about Israel and concerns over her objectivity.

The vote was 218-211 along party lines. In her first term, Omar drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for tweets that invoked anti-Semitic tropes. She apologized for those tweets but has remained outspoken about the influence of Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby, on U.S. politics.

The resolution, introduced by Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, stated that Omar "has disqualified herself from serving on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, a panel that is viewed by nations around the world as speaking for Congress on matters of international importance and national security."

Miller, who is one of two Jewish Republicans in the House, said in a statement that Omar "cannot be an objective decision-maker on the Foreign Affairs Committee given her biases against Israel and against the Jewish people."

Omar, who herself has faced anti-Muslim bigotry since taking office, told reporters last week that the move to remove her from the committee was "purely partisan."

In an emotional speech on the House floor Thursday, Omar said she is being targeted for her identity as a Muslim immigrant from Africa.

"Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy? Or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced." she said. "I didn't come to Congress to be silent."

Her experience as an immigrant and refugee who survived a civil war give her a valuable and unique perspective on American foreign policy, she added.

Republicans cite Democrats' votes to strip GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar of their committee assignments in 2021 as precedent for the Omar move.

One of the first things the Republican Party did upon gaining control of the House of Representatives was to restore committee privileges to Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose positions were stripped over a series of deranged and bigoted statements. One of its next moves is to impose the same punishment on Ilhan Omar over her past antisemitic statements, and it officially took this step in a House vote Thursday.

The absurdity and vindictiveness of the Omar decision is thrown into the starkest relief when you consider it in conjunction with the treatment of Greene.

By any standard whatsoever, Greene’s comments are more inflammatory, more frequent, and less contrite.

One could imagine a standard of strict enforcement of norms against antisemitism that would justify punishing both Omar and Greene. Alternatively, one could defend a standard of forgiveness and latitude that would avoid punishing either. But to punish Omar and forgive MTG is the height of absurdity.

Indeed, Republicans almost seemed to want to advertise their own hypocrisy by giving the job of leading the charge against Omar to Representative Max Miller, a former adviser to Donald Trump. Trump spent his presidency spewing antisemitic tropes: complaining about American Jews being ungrateful and lacking the good sense of either their Israeli compatriots or Evangelical Christians, being good with money, naturally loyal to Israel, owning Congress, and on and on.

Every one of these comments was worse than anything Omar said. None produced an apology or any detectable level of concern from his party.

Republicans are not unique in their hypocrisy on the antisemitism issue. The easiest thing to do in polarized times is to excuse bigotry by your allies while denouncing it only by your enemies. But to do that is to implicitly say you don’t care about antisemitism, you only care about partisan advantage. Democrats at least took the issue seriously enough to censure Omar and obtain her apology. The Republicans are sending a message that antisemitism is nothing more than a partisan attack line. Their censuring of Omar and elevation of Greene is an open door to antisemites on the right.

I feel our government has evolved into a (tit for tat) legislative body. It appears that running our country takes a backseat for vengance The democrats are just as bad as the republicans. I don't watch Fox News because all of their views are slanted to the right. I also don't watch MSNBC because their views are slanted to the left.