Israel

A coalition of over 200 rabbis sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticizing her for not removing the far-left Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN) from her committee assignment on the Foreign Affairs Committee after her most recent remarks made last week comparing the United States and Israel to terrorists.

In the letter first obtained by Fox News, the group of rabbis said they originally warned the speaker in 2019 against placing Omar on the committee.

The Coalition for Jewish Values continued to say they welcomed the speaker’s remarks last month when she condemned Omar and the rockets being fired on Israel, but they warned Pelosi that failing to “reverse [Omar’s] committee appointment would send the message to the world that you were ‘tolerating this hatred in the Democratic party.’”

“In this, you stand in the tradition of your father, a staunch advocate for the safety of Jews in Europe and the Holy Land. But recent events involving Rep. Omar have demonstrated that our apprehension was in no way exaggerated,” the group continued. “Failure to act at this juncture would allow antisemitism to not only fester in Congress, but also inflame it in cities across America.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values explained:

Rep. Omar’s unfounded assertion that Israel committed “unthinkable atrocities” by defending lives against an openly genocidal terror organization is not merely offensive, it is pernicious—for it is grounded in the blood libel and the calumny that Jews poisoned wells during the Black Death. Throughout the generations, rivers of blood have been shed by mobs motivated by the incendiary myth of the murderous Jew.

Without anything resembling a forceful response from the Democratic Party, tolerance of anti-Jewish hatred has proliferated. When 12 Jewish Democrats in the House rightfully denounced Rep. Omar’s abhorrent bigotry, the Congressional Progressive Caucus stooped to playing identity politics, cravenly insinuating that the motivation for the condemnation was opposition to Rep. Omar as a “Black, Muslim woman” rather than her antisemitic animus.

…

Rep. Omar has stated that you and your Congressional colleagues are incapable of objectively adjudicating her claims of “unthinkable atrocities” committed by the U.S. military; that is the basis for her demand that the International Criminal Court (ICC) intervene. Her later “clarification” contradicts what she said in committee, for she indeed equated democracies with terror organizations, and, importantly, the ICC’s purview does not extend to “democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.” If her “clarification” is to be taken at face value, it is an admission that her statements were baseless. Thus your reply that Rep. Omar “has a point that she wanted to make, and she has a right to make that point” is both acceptance of bigotry and an abdication of leadership.

They added, Jewish people all over the country are being attacked day and night, and the attackers are incited by Omar’s rhetoric, “Yet the Congressional Progressive Caucus claims that it is Rep. Omar who is facing ‘threats.’” This is why the group says they are “appalled.”

The rabbis noted their organization condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) twice when she made anti-Jewish remarks. But the group wanted to stress that “action against Rep. Greene, coupled with the elevation of Rep. Omar, signals that Congress is now willing to tolerate Anti-Semitism when it is politically advantageous to do so.”

The group reiterated their feeling that the “attacks on American Jews today are directly attributable to the rhetoric of Rep. Omar and those who stand with her within and beyond Congress.” They also wanted to emphasize that Omar’s continued remarks have been worse than what Greene has said in the past.

The coalition wrote, in order to “protect Jewish Americans and, moreover, safeguard the integrity of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we thus insist upon the removal of Rep. Omar from her appointment.”

Breitbart News previously reported Omar made remarks during a hearing she attended virtually to question Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The tweet in which Omar attached a video of her remarks said, “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.”

The tweet continued, “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.”

Omar’s tweets with her remarks are still on Twitter.