Yet amid the heated debate, one prominent voice has been conspicuously absent. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, long regarded as a leading figure and de facto spokesperson for the Somali American community, has remained silent. Her silence is striking, particularly given that she rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Israel and is usually outspoken on Somali-related issues.

One possible explanation lies in the delicate internal dynamics of the Somali community in the US, which forms the backbone of Omar's electoral base, as well as in her own controversial family history, tied to one of the darkest chapters in Somalia's past.

Omar's father, Col. Nur Omar Mohamed, was allegedly directly involved in the genocide against members of the Isaaq clan in northern Somalia. That same clan later went on, in the aftermath of the civil war, to establish the Republic of Somaliland. The genocide was carried out under the rule of Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who led an authoritarian military regime and routinely executed his opponents.

The campaign of mass killings began after Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden War against Ethiopia, a loss that triggered a massive influx of refugees into northern Somalia. The sudden arrival of large numbers of refugees led to mounting friction with the local population, most of them Arab members of the Isaaq clan, who lived semi-nomadic lives in the region. The tensions eventually erupted into an Isaaq uprising against the Mogadishu regime, prompting Barre to order a brutal military crackdown.

The president's son-in-law, Gen. Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan, drafted a document approved by Barre that proposed a "final solution" to what he described as the Isaaq problem. The plan was swiftly implemented, launching a systematic campaign of executions by gunfire, starvation and aerial bombardment. More than 200,000 civilians were killed, and human rights organizations continue to uncover new mass graves in the sands of Somaliland.

Col. Nur Omar Mohamed was one of the commanders in the field during the genocide. His close ties to the president and to the ruling clan enabled him to evade accountability. At the time, the Somaliland Chronicle published an article stating: "At the heart of this brutal military regime stood Col. Nur Omar Mohamed, Ilhan Omar's father. His rank, authority, membership in the ruling Darod clan, and more than 10 years of advancement through the Somali military hierarchy to the rank of colonel placed him directly within the chain of command during, and at the height of, the Isaaq genocide. Based on his position, loyalty to the regime and role in the army, it is almost certain that he had extensive knowledge of, and involvement in, the planning, conception, management and execution of the genocide."

Many survivors of the genocide, along with members of other ethnic groups who suffered under Barre's bloody rule, now live in the US and form part of Omar's electorate. The prospect of reopening the deep wounds of the massacres of the late 1980s and early 1990s may be reason enough for the congresswoman to forgo another confrontation with Israel and opt, at least this time, for silence.

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Representative Ilhan Omar, a prominent member of the progressive "Squad" in Congress, has successfully defended her seat in Minnesota's 5th District Democratic primary, according to projections reported by BBC. The closely watched race concluded with Omar securing over 56% of the vote, solidifying her position as the party's nominee for the November election.

With 99% of votes counted, Omar received more than 67,000 votes, comfortably outpacing her closest rival, Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis City Council member. Samuels, who had narrowly lost to Omar in 2022, garnered just under 43% of the votes in Tuesday's primary.

Rep. Ilhan Omar wins her primary election in the 5th Congressional district of Minnesota!

Omar has defeated The 75-year-old Black man named Don Samuels, winning 56% of the votes or 67,524 with 95% of the votes in.

pic.twitter.com/GVfq0JBadC

— EXECUTIVE MEDIA (@EXECUTIVEXMEDIA) August 14, 2024

The victory comes at a time when other members of the "Squad" have faced significant challenges. Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri and Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York both lost their primary races earlier this year, with pro-Israel groups investing heavily in their opponents' campaigns.

Unlike the races involving Bush and Bowman, the Super PAC operated by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) appeared to stay out of Omar's contest. However, The Intercept reported a last-minute effort by wealthy pro-Israel donors to raise six-figure sums in support of Samuels.

Omar, one of the first Muslims elected to the US Congress, has been a vocal critic of Israel's policies, particularly regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Her stance on Israel has been a source of controversy throughout her tenure in office.

In February 2023, Omar was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee by the Republican-controlled House, citing previous comments she had made about Israel. Democrats decried the move as political retaliation for similar actions taken against Republicans when Democrats held the House majority in 2020.

The congresswoman's campaign received support from high-profile figures, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice President Kamala Harris. An internal poll conducted last month had suggested Omar held a 30-point lead over her challengers.

In the same primary elections, Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has served in the US Senate since 2007, also secured victory in her primary challenge.

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"No way in hell," Rep. Ilhan Omar told The Messenger when asked whether she would attend President Isaac Herzog's July 19 address to Congress.

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Omar, part of the so-called "Squad" and a frequent anti-Israel critic, claimed that she didn't even know that the Israeli president was scheduled to come to the Capitol.

Video: Herzog on Israel-US ties (Credit: GPO)

"There is no way in hell I am attending the joint session address from a president whose country has banned me and denied Rashida Tlaib the ability to see her grandma," Omar tweeted.

Tlaib was permitted to visit her grandmother but opted not to do so.

In part of a Twitter thread, she appeared to be aware that Israel's president was different than its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"While executive power in Israel is vested in the prime minister and his cabinet, the president as head of state has traditionally served as a 'faithful policy ambassador' for the government in charge," she wrote, sharing a Haaretz opinion article.

"I respect the fact that unlike others in her party, she doesn't even pretend it's about Bibi. She just hates Israel! Openly!" tweeted Seth Mandel, executive editor of the Washington Examiner.

"It's like when AOC pulled out of an event honoring Yitzhak Rabin when she found out he was Israeli." he said about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "Isaac Herzog ran against Bibi as head of the Labor party, and nearly beat him too. Now he's trying to get Likud to water down judicial reform. If you claim to simply hate Bibi and want a more liberal Israel, Herzog is your hero. If you just hate Israel, you boycott him too."

If Omar really opposed Netanyahu, then she would attend the talk and clap along, but her problem is with Jews, not with the prime minster, Mandel added.

"So Omar is boycotting Herzog's address to Congress because of the Netanyahu judicial package that Herzog has worked tirelessly to try to prevent?" tweeted Robert David Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center at City University of New York.

Bryan Leib, executive director of CASEPAC, tweeted that Omar is a leader of the boycott Israel movement in America. "Stop calling for the boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel, and I'm willing to bet you will be allowed to visit like thousands of other Muslims do every single week," he wrote.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Tuesday played a harrowing death threat recently left for her by voicemail, while imploring House Republican leaders to do more to tamp down "anti-Muslim hatred" in their ranks and "hold those who perpetuate it accountable."

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Omar, one of only a handful of Muslim members of Congress, has been the subject of repeated attacks by conservative pundits and some Republicans in Congress, which she says have led to an increase in the number of death threats she receives. The most recent instance came after a video of first-term Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert calling Omar a member of the "jihad squad" and likening her to a bomb-carrying terrorist went viral.

"When a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the 'jihad squad' and falsifies a story to suggest I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just an attack on me but on millions of American Muslims across the country," Omar said during a news conference Tuesday. "We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn't have real consequences."

Then Omar played the voicemail, laden with profanity, racial epithets and a threat to "take you off the face of the (expletive) earth," which she said was among hundreds of such messages she has reported since joining Congress. Omar said the voicemail was left for her after Boebert released another video on Monday attacking her.

In the grainy recording, a man can be heard saying, "You will not be living much longer, b——" while promising that "we the people are rising up." He also calls Omar a "traitor" and pledges that she will stand trial before a military tribunal.

Omar then concluded, "It is time for the Republican Party to actually do something to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks and hold those who perpetuate it accountable."

Boebert's incendiary remarks are just the latest example of a GOP lawmaker making a personal attack against another member of Congress, an unsettling trend that has gone largely unchecked by House Republican leaders.

The chain of events was set in motion over a week ago when a video posted to Facebook showed Boebert speaking at an event and describing an interaction with Omar — an interaction Omar maintains never happened.

In the video, Boebert claims that a Capitol Police officer approached her with "fret on his face" shortly before she stepped aboard a House elevator and the doors closed.

"I look to my left and there she is — Ilhan Omar. And I said: 'Well, she doesn't have a backpack. We should be fine,'" Boebert says with a laugh.

Boebert's comment about Omar not wearing a backpack was an apparent reference to her not carrying a suicide bomb.

Reaction to the video was swift. Omar called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to "take appropriate action." But so far McCarthy, who is in line to become House speaker if Republicans retake the majority next year, has proven reluctant to police members of his caucus whose views are often closely aligned with the party's base.

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Representative Andre Carson, who is also Muslim, said he is working with Democratic leadership on a House resolution that could address the issue.

Boebert initially took steps to ease the situation. Last week, she apologized "to anyone in the Muslim community I offended," but not directly to Omar.

But after declining to apologize directly to Omar during a tense phone call Monday, which Omar abruptly ended, Boebert again went on the attack.

"Rejecting an apology and hanging up on someone is part of cancel culture 101 and a pillar of the Democrat Party," Boebert said in an Instagram video.

So far, McCarthy is taking her side.

When asked Tuesday what he would do if Democrats tried to censure Boebert, McCarthy said: "After she apologized personally and publicly? I'd vote against it."

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Former US President Donald Trump blasted Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and other members of the so-called "Squad" of progressive Democratic lawmakers in US Congress in an interview on the Ari Hoffman Show on Friday.

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"The biggest change I've seen in Congress is Israel literally owned Congress – you understand that," said Trump on the conservative talk radio show. "Ten years ago, 15 years ago, and it was so powerful. It was so powerful and today it's almost the opposite."

The former Commander in Chief then proceeded to target specific members of Congress, namely Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar, who were among 11 lawmakers in September who did not support legislation to allocate $1 billion as additional funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.

"You have between AOC and Omar – and these people that hate Israel. They hate it with a passion – they're controlling Congress, and Israel is not a force in Congress anymore. I mean, it's just amazing. I've never seen such a change," he said.

"Israel had such power – and rightfully – over Congress, and now it doesn't," Trump added.

Hoffman then told Trump Israelis were passionate about his re-election as well as thankful for his role in the Abraham Accords.

"I was affectionately told that I could run for prime minister and win over there," responded the former president jokingly, before going on to discuss his support amongst the Jewish community back in the United States.

"I didn't get the vote from Jewish people you think I would get in this country, many of them do not like Israel. You look at The New York Times," he said.

Trump also made a point of lauding his efforts in achieving peace in the Middle East in comparison to his successor, criticizing current President Joe Biden's approach to Iran and repeating claims that countries were "lining up" to join the Abraham Accords before he lost his reelection bid.

"We would've had peace in the Middle East," he alleged confidently. "Now I don't think they can, because they're dealing with Iran again and the way they're dealing with them – the weakness is just incredible when you look at it."

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This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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One week after Defense Minister Benny Gantz designated six human rights organizations as terrorist groups for their ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the head of the left-wing activist group Breaking the Silence met in Washington with anti-Israel congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)

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Following his meeting with Omar, Avner Gvaryahu tweeted the two had spoken: "about the six Palestinian human rights NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] who were disgracefully outlawed last week, the ever-increasing entrenchment of the occupation and the surge in settler violence against Palestinians."

Thank you @Ilhan for an excellent meeting. We spoke about the six Palestinian human rights NGOs who were disgracefully outlawed last week, the ever-increasing entrenchment of the occupation and the surge in settler violence against Palestinians pic.twitter.com/83VLi1i245

— Avner Gvaryahu (@AGvaryahu) October 27, 2021

The meeting followed a contentious week in US-Israel relations during which the US State Department condemned Israel's plans to authorize the construction of thousands of housing units in Judea and Samaria.

At a press conference, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Washington was "concerned about the publication of tenders on Sunday for 1,300 settlement units, for – 1,300 settlement units in a number of West Bank settlements."

"We also view plans for the retroactive legalization of illegal outposts as unacceptable," he said.

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Scapegoating Jews for the problems in a society has always been a central feature of Jew-hatred.

Since well before the German agitator Wilhelm Marr first utilized the phrase "antisemitism" in the late 19th century (to make Jew-hatred sound race-based, scientific and academic), the formula for justifying antisemitism and inciting Jew-hatred has been to find what people hate, fear or are most upset about, and attach it to the Jewish people. Call it the "Jew-hatred incitement formula."

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In the Middle Ages, the Jews were blamed for the spread of the Bubonic Plague. They were accused of poisoning wells and breeding spiders and vermin to spread the disease among non-Jews. This led to ethnic cleansing and widespread attacks against Jews.

In Czarist Russia, deprivation and economic hardship were regularly blamed on Jews, often with deadly consequences. So common was the scapegoating of Jews that between 1880 and 1920, pogroms (riots aimed at massacring Jews) exploded over and over again. And while hard data about the numbers of casualties is hard to come by conservative estimates are that more than 100,000 Jews were murdered during this period, with at least three times as many being wounded.

Hitler and the Nazis took full advantage of the history of antisemitism in Europe, as well as of the Jew-hatred incitement formula, by blaming Jews for the Great Depression, Germany's loss in World War I, the shortcomings of capitalism, and, with no concern for the apparent contradiction, the spread of communism.

Now, in the 21st century, the Holocaust has become distant history for many people, and the Jew-hatred incitement formula is once again being utilized as a political tool by Jew-haters, including, sadly, many members of the US Congress.

Considering also the historic obsession with focusing hate on Israel, the only Jewish country, it should surprise no one that some of these representatives would use this formula to incite hatred of Israel. What should be surprising is that so many of their fellow Democrats have turned a blind eye to the antisemitism coming from members of their own party.

On May 13, in a speech before Congress, Representative Ayanna Pressley compared the Israeli army to "violent white supremacists."

Not the Chinese Army, which rounds up Uyghur Muslims in the dark of night and takes them to slave-labor "re-education" camps. Not the Iranian security police, who literally hang homosexuals. Not the Pakistani army, which regularly beats and oppresses the Baloch people. No other countries were referenced by Pressley as a parallel to the horror and stain of Jim Crow racism – only the one Jewish state is shoehorned into that mendacious comparison.

Perhaps Pressley was inspired by fellow "Squad" member Representative Rashida Tlaib, who just two days earlier, in a speech delivered in front of the State Department decrying Israel's response to Hamas rocket fire, claimed: "What they are doing to the Palestinians is what they are doing to our Black brothers and sisters here."

Who are "they" in this statement? And how is it that Tlaib can claim that the Israeli response to Hamas firing rockets on Israel is connected to the struggles of black people in the United States?

The answer is that no one in the Democratic leadership challenged her effort to attach the one Jewish state to the more than 400 years of racism in America.

Later, on Aug. 1, in a speech at the 2021 Democratic Socialist of America National Convention, Tlaib took her use of the Jew-hatred incitement formula to the next level when she said:

"We also need to recognize, as I think about my family and Palestine that continue to live under military occupation and how that really interacts with this beautiful black city that I grew up in. … [Y]ou know, I always tell people cutting people off from water is violence, from Gaza to Detroit. And it's a way to control people, to oppress people. And it's those structures that we continue to fight against."

It wasn't enough that Tlaib attached legitimate water concerns in Michigan to fraudulent claims about Israel denying water to Palestinian Arabs – she took her speech to the Democratic Socialists yet another step further:

"I know that you all understand the structure that we've been living under right now is designed by those that exploit the rest of us for their own profit. I don't care if it's the issue around global human rights and our fight to free Palestine or to pushing back against those that don't believe in the minimum wage or those that believe that people have a right to healthcare and so much more. And I tell people, those same people, that if you open the curtain and look behind the curtain, it's the same people that make money and, yes, they do, off of racism, off of these broken policies. There is someone there making money, and you saw it!"

Appropriately, Tlaib gave this trope-laden speech in Detroit, where Henry Ford laid the groundwork with his infamous "International Jew" pamphlets, scapegoating Jews and deploying classic antisemitic tropes.

Three days later, on Aug. 4, another Squad member, Cori Bush, took the antisemitic baton from Tlaib, and in a speech before Congress invoked the Jew-hatred incitement formula to blame American aid to Israel for the crime, homelessness and poverty in her hometown of St. Louis. Not the $2 trillion the United States spent in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, including over $90 billion for the now-defunct Afghan Army. Not the $3 billion per year on average that the United States has provided to Egypt and Jordan since 1979. Not the near $35 billion that the United States spent just between 2016 and 2019 on maintaining its military presence in Japan and South Korea. Nor anything else in the annual federal expenditure of over $5 trillion.

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According to Bush, out of the more than $5 trillion per year that the US federal government spends, the only part responsible for the crime, homelessness and poverty in her congressional district is the part that goes toward America's military aid package for Israel.

The irony is that unlike our aid packages to other countries, almost every dime of the US aid package with Israel is spent in the US on American-made products and benefits the United States in numerous other ways, including shared technological innovations. Blaming the less than one-tenth of 1% of the annual budget used in connection with the one Jewish state for domestic problems like homelessness, crime and poverty is a blatant use of the Jew-hatred incitement formula.

As with Pressley's and Tlaib's use of the formula, not a single Democratic leader stepped forward to rebuke, let alone formerly censure or sanction, Bush for her overt antisemitism. Instead, most of the Democratic Party leadership is silent in the face of this incitement to Jew-hatred.

When another Squad member, Representative Ilhan Omar, received well-deserved criticism for her use of antisemitic tropes – her "all about the Benjamins" or multiple "dual loyalty" claims, and her recent comparison of Israel to the Taliban (though she has been remarkably quiet about the Taliban lately) – the Democratic leadership in Congress quickly backed down from any effort to censure Omar for hate speech (in contrast with how the Republican leadership responded to Marjorie Taylor Green's use of antisemitic conspiracy theories).

Even worse, Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi actually supported the dangerous deflection promoted by other Squad members like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bush, that people were criticizing Omar because of her gender, faith and ethnicity rather than her inflammatory words.

The math is clear. Not only is there a Jew-hatred incitement formula, but also there is a different formula for how Jew-haters are treated depending on whether their hate speech comes from the perceived left or right.

While David Duke is universally and rightly vilified for his Jew-hatred, Louis Farrakhan's anti-Jewish remarks and conspiracy theories get a pass from many members of Congress and other so-called progressives, who refuse to criticize or distance themselves from him. A Republican congresswoman who promotes dangerous conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds is sanctioned almost immediately, while Squad members continue to get a pass for regularly employing antisemitic tropes and using the age-old Jew-hatred incitement formula to blame Israel and the Jews for problems including unclean water, homelessness, racism in America, police brutality and poverty.

The problem is that whether incitement comes from the left or the right, it always leads to violence against Jews. The political ideology of the person engaging in antisemitism should have no bearing on our response to it. When people believe Jews are the cause of their problems, violence against Jews will follow.

We often hear from many of the same progressives who defend the Squad that "silence is violence" or "silence is complicity." They're right. If only they would take their own words to heart when it comes to their own silence in the face of the consistent use of the Jew-hatred incitement formula. Hopefully, they will do so before the cancer of this incitement spreads any further.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Hamas on Saturday criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for comparing it to the United States and Israel.

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"The remarks made by US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar are very peculiar; she equated between the victim and the executioner when she treated the resistance of the Palestinian people, the Israeli crimes in Palestine, and the US aggression in Afghanistan as an equal footing," Basem Naim, a member of Hamas' International Relations Office, said in a statement posted on the terrorist group's website.

The Hamas statement referred to a June 7 tweet by Omar, which read in part: "We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban."

Together with her comments, she posted a video of a question she posed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

While thanking Omar for taking positions the terror group views as favorable on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hamas said her comparison was "unacceptable" and "unfair" as it contradicted "basic norms of justice and international law."

"We hope that US Rep. Ilhan Omar and all defenders of Palestinian rights make effort to provide a proper and accurate description of the situation, as this is the starting point to lay the foundations for a fair solution for this prolonged state of injustice and denial of the Palestinian people's rights," the statement said.

Last week, both Republicans and Democrats chastised Omar for the tweet, with Democrats releasing a joint statement, led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and signed by 12 Jewish Democratic members of Congress, calling her statements "offensive and misguided."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Rep. Ilhan Omar tried edging away Thursday from a bitter fight with senior Democratic lawmakers who'd accused her of likening the US and Israel to Hamas and Afghanistan's Taliban, saying her remarks were "in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries."

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A three-sentence statement by the Minnesota Democrat also said her comments were "not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the US and Israel," and seemed to dial back a more confrontational tone she'd taken earlier. In a series of tweets, Omar had said her critics' public rebuke of her was "shameful," accused them of "Islamophobic tropes" and said she was merely seeking justice "for all victims of crimes against humanity."

Minutes after Omar released her latest remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the other top five House Democratic leaders issued an unusual joint statement making clear they'd disapproved of Omar's initial comments.

"Drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the US and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all," the leaders said. "We welcome the clarification by Congresswoman Omar that there is no moral equivalency between the US and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban."

The leaders' statement seemed designed to try defusing their party's latest rancorous dispute over the Middle East. That schism has generally pitted younger progressives against older, establishment-leaning lawmakers who are more pro-Israel, a divide that has intensified since last month's 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The quick intervention by top Democrats also came ahead of what may be a Republican attempt to train attention on Omar's words when the House returns next week from recess.

In a possible preview of that, the National Republican Congressional Committee tweeted Thursday, "@Housedemocrats must vote to strip anti-Semite @IlhanMN of her committee assignments." The NRCC is the House GOP campaign organization.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Pelosi's failure to take action "sends a message to the world that Democrats are tolerant of anti-Semitism and sympathizing with terrorists."

A Republican effort to remove Omar from her committees would likely fail in the Democratic-run chamber, but would spotlight divisions within the party that the GOP has sought to exploit before.

A top House Democratic aide would not comment on whether Pelosi and party leaders had pressed Omar to issue her latest statement.

This week's flare-up involving Omar, 38, was the most recent instance in which she has clashed with fellow Democrats over the Middle East. Two months after she arrived in Congress in 2019, the House approved a resolution condemning antisemitism and other forms of bigotry – without mentioning her – after she made remarks that critics said accused Israel supporters of having dual allegiances.

The latest confrontation between Omar, a Muslim-American born in Somalia, and fellow Democrats began when she tweeted a Monday exchange with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a video conference in which she called for justice "for all victims of crimes against humanity."

In remarks that drew the most attention, she said, "We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the US, Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice."

Late Wednesday, Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., and 11 other Jewish House Democrats issued a statement labeling those remarks offensive and misguided. They said she should "clarify" what she meant.

"Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredits one's intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice," they wrote.

They said that while the US and Israel are "imperfect" and merit occasional criticism, "False equivalencies give cover to terrorist groups."

On Thursday, Omar tweeted that it was "shameful" that fellow Democrats who sometimes seek her support on issues didn't ask her for an explanation by simply calling her. "The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment and silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable," she wrote.

It's shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for "clarification" and not just call.

The islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment & silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable. https://t.co/37dy2UduW0

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 10, 2021

She also wrote, "Every time I speak out on human rights I am inundated with death threats." She posted an excerpt of an expletive-laden voice mail she said she'd just received with a caller saying he hopes she gets "what's coming for you."

She also said her comments did not reflect prejudice and cited an International Criminal Court investigation of the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas. "You might try to undermine these investigations or deny justice to their victims but history has [taught] us that the truth can't be hidden or silenced forever," she wrote.

Citing an open case against Israel, US, Hamas & Taliban in the ICC isn't comparison or from "deeply seated prejudice". You might try to undermine these investigations or deny justice to their victims but history has thought us that the truth can't be hidden or silenced forever.

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 10, 2021

In her later statement, Omar said her conversation with Blinken "was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the US and Israel. I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems."

Schneider tweeted he was pleased with that comment, adding, "I hope all can avoid such offhanded statements in the future."

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Yet, underscoring the party's split, Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri also tweeted support for Omar. In 2018, Tlaib and Omar became the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

Tlaib said Democratic leadership "should be ashamed of its relentless, exclusive tone policing of Congresswomen of color."

Bush said she expects criticism from Republicans, but it was "especially hurtful" that Omar was facing backlash from Democrats. "We're your colleagues," she tweeted. "Talk to us directly. Enough with the anti-Blackness and Islamophobia."

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Progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) told Qatar's Al-Araby TV last week that she implored the Biden administration to support Israel's referral to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

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"The US should not de-legitimize the ICC and the things it must do," she said. "It is shocking that the legitimacy of the ICC is something that is being questioned." The court's ability to "investigate, probe and render justice" was being undermined in the United States, she added.

The ICC's pre-trial chamber ruled in a 2-1 decision on February 5 that the court's jurisdiction extends to "the territories occupied by Israel since 1967," meaning the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), including east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The decision means the ICC can now launch an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in each of these areas. The ruling drew sharp and immediate criticism, both in Israel and the United States, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it "pure antisemitism," while the US State Department issued a formal objection.

Neither Israel nor the United States is a signatory of the Rome Statute that established the court.

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When asked about the future of the US embassy in Jerusalem, Omar implied that she and her progressive colleagues were playing a long strategic game. "It doesn't currently seem like a lot will be changed, but there will be an opportunity for us to push for the United States to stand for its values and principles."

She also approved of the Biden administration's removal of the "terrorist" designation from the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, a move that seems premature at best considering the massive uptick in violence over the last two weeks or so as the group pushes to take Marib, the internationally recognized Yemeni government's last northern stronghold.

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