Ilhan Omar calls Stephen Miller "white nationalist", accused of anti-Semitism

A familiar story was told Monday night for representative Ilhan Omar (D-Min.), Who sentenced one of President Trump's most trusted advisers, before being accused of anti-Semitism.

"Stephen Miller is a white nationalist," she said tweeted Monday afternoon. "The fact that he still has influence on politics and political appointments is a scandal." But because Miller, Trump's senior political advisor, is Jewish, Omar's fervent right-wing critics have seen his comments not as an inflammatory criticism of Miller's rigorous immigration policy. but rather as part of a targeting model of the Jews.

"Before I came to Congress, @IlhanOmar, I had never seen another member target a Jewish people like this with his name and other personal attacks," said Representative Lee Zeldin (RN .Y.), Perhaps the most relentless of Omar. critical, wrote on Twitter. "In 2019 however, for @IlhanOmar, it's called Monday."

This last fight comes just days after the arrest of a New York man accused of threatening Omar by promising him to "put a bullet in his head." [expletive] skull ", the rhetoric that supporters of the first congressional legislature have been encouraged by the heated accusations of Jewish bias and Islamophobia, and Somali refugee Omar is a Muslim.

The allegations of anti-Semitism have upset Omar since taking office this year, after suggesting that the Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential Jewish lobbying group, wielded power over members of Congress. But for Omar's supporters, the omnipresent attacks of the right since then have turned out to be a politically-wise smear campaign that trivializes the meaning of true anti-Semitism. For others, this is part of a greater effort to silence women of color in Congress, fueling vitriolic attacks and death threats.

Omar's Monday remarks were prompted by reports that Miller's desire to recruit more demanding candidates to head the Immigration Enforcement and Customs Division had contributed to Trump's decision. to withdraw the candidacy of Ronald Vitiello. Miller has been the architect of many radical immigration policies, such as the separation of families, and has pleaded for the closure of the entire US-Mexican border.

Critics of Donald Trump Jr., experts in various conservative media, immediately threw themselves at Omar, wondering how a Jew could be accused of being a white nationalist.

"I see that Farrakhan's Fan Club leader, @IlhanMN, took a short break after spreading his usual anti-Semitic intuition today to accuse a Jewish man of being a" white nationalist "because She's apparently no shame, "wrote Trump. Jr., referring to Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam.

Matt Wolking, Deputy Director of Communications for the President's Re-election Campaign, proposed this simple take on Twitter"He is Jewish and Ilhan Omar is a racist anti-Semite."

The negative reaction reflects an apparent effort on the part of some GOP members to use Omar's comments to sow division within the Democratic Party and among Jewish Democratic voters. Take Christian Ziegler, Vice President of the Florida GOP, who used the negative reaction urge "my Jewish friends" join the so-called "#jexodus" movement, encouraging Jews to leave the Democratic Party en masse.

Some mocked the critics who seemed to extrapolate an anti-Jewish bias from Omar's remarks, while others attacked Zeldin, the Republican MP from New York.

"Representative Zeldin uses his Jewishness to cover a white nationalist regime that fuels hatred and terror against Jews (and many other peoples) in the United States and, until President Trump feels so well protected, " writes economist David Rothschild.

"Inappropriate accusations of anti-Semitism mask the ugliness of reality," Perry Gershon, a Democrat businessman who lost to Zeldin in 2018 and plans to challenge him for his seat in the next election cycle, wrote on Twitter, referring to Zeldin's comments.

Omar has long claimed that his condemnation of the treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government was wrongly confused with the condemnation of the Jewish people. In February, she apologized for using what had been criticized as an antisemitic trope when she had suggested to AIPAC to buy the support of Congressmen. "Everything revolves around the baby Benjamins," she had tweeted at the time, referring to the $ 100 bills. Last month, she was accused of hinting that Jews had a "double loyalty" to the United States and Israel after criticizing "the political influence in this country that it is acceptable to people to lobby for allegiance to a foreign country. "

In her apology, Omar said that she did not intend to offend the Jews or that she did not know that she was using anti-Semitic tropes. The House adopted a generic resolution condemning bigotry in response.

But the attacks on Omar have not slowed down. On Saturday, a day after federal prosecutors announced charges against the man who allegedly threatened to kill Omar, Trump mocked her during a speech to members of the Jewish Republican Coalition in Las Vegas.

"Special thanks to Omar representative from Minnesota," Trump told attendees, including the casino magnate and well-known Republican donor Sheldon Adelson. "Oh I forgot, she does not like Israel, I forgot, I'm so sorry."

Trump was also accused of expressing the same "double loyalty" trope that was used by Omar's critics. Addressing Saturday the group of Jewish Republicans, Trump described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "your prime minister" and asked the audience to explain "to some of your citizens" why they should not object to its tariffs on imported products.

"Mr. President, the Israeli Prime Minister is the head of his country, not ours," according to the American Jewish Committee. tweeted. "The contrary statements by fierce friends or harsh critics fuel fanaticism."

A spokesman for Omar could not be immediately contacted to comment early Tuesday on the latest accusations of anti-Semitism.