The New York Post uses the front page of 9/11 to attack Muslim Congressman Ilhan Omar

The New York Post presented a photo of the World Trade Center in flames alongside a quote from Ilhan Omar on the front page in response to comments from the Muslim Congressman on Islamophobia.

The title of the first page of the Thursday edition of the newspaper was: "Here's your something … 2,977 people killed by terrorism."

This comes after Ms. Omar made brief remarks about Islamophobia during an event that took place in March following the shooting that claimed the lives of 50 Muslim worshipers in New Zealand.

But after the release of the video of the event this week, conservative personalities focused on how she had referred to September 11 because "some people did something".

The New York Post The cover page has been condemned by liberal commentators online. Many felt that the newspaper, which has a long history of incendiary pages, had exceeded the limits of acceptability.

Others said the coverage amounted to an incitement to violence against Ms. Omar, who faces a growing number of threats.

"Disgusting," wrote Josh Marshall, publisher and publisher of Talking Points Memo.

"Ugly and basically dishonest," wrote writer Jill Filipovic. "This is by no means a fair representation of what she said.

"The hatred of a black Muslim parliamentarian is simply staggering."

«C’est un fanatisme absolument vil, qui pourrait très probablement inciter à la violence contre les musulmans», a écrit Ryan Cooper dans La semaine.

Mme Omar a fait cette remarque le mois dernier lors d'un banquet organisé par le Council on American-Islamic Relations, une organisation musulmane des libertés civiles fréquemment visée par les critiques d'extrême droite.

Son discours a été prononcé une semaine après la fusillade à Christchurch, que des responsables ont qualifiée d'acte terroriste.

Des centaines de personnes ont protesté contre Mme Omar à l'extérieur du banquet, en scandant des paroles comme «Brûlons le Coran», «Ilhan Omar, allez en enfer» et «Honte à vous, terroristes».

Elle a utilisé son discours pour parler de l'islamophobie et a déclaré qu'elle croyait que Donald Trump avait joué un rôle dans le renforcement de la "haine contre les musulmans".

«Cela fait trop longtemps que nous vivons avec le malaise d'être un citoyen de seconde classe et, franchement, j'en ai marre, et chaque musulman de ce pays devrait en avoir marre», a-t-elle déclaré.

“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognised that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.

"So you can't just say that today someone is looking at me strange and that I am trying to make myself look pleasant.

"You have to say that this person is looking at me strange, I am not comfortable with it, and I am going to talk to them and ask them why. Because that is the right you have.”

(CAIR was actually founded in 1994, as The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler noted.)

But conservatives have stuck on the description of 9/11 as “some people did something.”

Congressman Dan Crenshaw, of Texas, a former Navy SEAL, helped amplify the controversy.

He retweeted a snippet of Ms Omar's remarks on Tuesday and wrote: “First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as 'some people who did something.' Unbelievable.”

The next day, Brian Kilmeade, a host of Fox & Friends, questioned Ms Omar's loyalty, saying “You have to wonder if she is an American first.” Those comments echoed those made recently by another Fox host, Jeanine Pirro.

Other conservative figureheads, like Donald Trump Jr, joined in.

“This woman is a disgrace,” Trump Jr tweeted on Thursday.

Many Democrats have come to Ms Omar's defence.

“It's horrible what they're doing,” congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Thursday. “Frankly, this is getting to a level that is beyond politics or partisanship.”

Ms Ocasio-Cortez said that it was also irresponsible to use an image of 9/11 in that way.

“To circulate all around New York City an image that is incredibly upsetting and triggering for New Yorkers that were actually there and were actually in the radius and that woke up one morning or were in their schools and didn't know if they were going to see their parents at the end of the day, to elicit such an image for such a transparently and politically motivated attack on Ilhan,” she said, trailing off.

“We are getting to the level where this is an incitement of violence against progressive women of colour.”

On Twitter, she noted that Ms Omar was a co-sponsor – one of 213 – of a bill to reauthorise the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.

“She's done more for 9/11 families than the GOP, Ms Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, of Michigan, called the New York Post's cover a “pure racist act.”

the New York Post, which did not respond to a request for comment sent to a spokeswoman, has largely avoided this kind of critical attention in recent years, aware, perhaps, of Mr Trump's unpopularity in the city. But the newspaper has a long track-record of controversial front pages and headlines.

Another cover that drew a comparable level of criticism was one it published in the days after the Boston marathon bombing.

The cover showed two men – a teenager and a man just a few years older than him – at the Boston Marathon, with the headline “BAG MEN,” seeming to suggest the two were potentially suspects in the case.

“Feds seek these two pictured at Boston Marathon,” the headline also said.

But the two men, Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, in a lawsuit they later filed against The New York Post, said they were never suspects in the case, nor had they ever been sought by law enforcement in connection with it.

“Today's front page of the Post is a black mark in the annals of newspaper history, and it shows that the Murdoch paper deserves no benefit of the doubt,” Ryan Chittum wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review. “Any pretence of professionalism – as thin as it might have been – is gone.”

The New York Post later settled the defamation lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

Washington Post