On Saturday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) blamed President Donald Trump for encouraging attacks like the New Zealand mosque shooting and accused him of knowing he’s encouraging attacks.
Speaking about the terror attack, she said, “We all kind of knew that this was happening. But the reason I think that many of us knew that this was going to get worse is that we finally have a leader, a world leader, in the White House, who publicly says Islam hates us, who fuels hate against Muslims, who thinks it is okay to speak about a faith and a whole community in a way that is dehumanizing, vilifying, and doesn’t understand — or at least makes us want to think that he doesn’t understand — the consequences that his words might have.”
In this remarkable statement, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, Omar blamed the heinous terror attack on Trump’s rhetoric and claimed that Trump engages in elaborate subterfuge to distance himself from such hate. She gave the speech at a dinner sponsored by the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that reportedly has ties to radical Islamic terror groups.
“Some people like me know that he understands the consequences,” the congresswoman continued, claiming to understand his mind. “He knows that there are people that he can influence to threaten our lives, to diminish our presence, but what we know and what Islam teaches us and what I always say, is that love trumps hate.”
According to Omar, Trump spews anti-Muslim “hate” in order to influence others to “threaten our lives,” knowing the consequences of his actions and yet attempting to convince the world that he has no idea what he’s doing.
Ironically, by delivering this message, Omar is playing right into the New Zealand terrorist’s grand plans. He said he intended to spark a civil war in the United States, and this Democratic congresswoman is helping him do this.
Yet Omar’s rush to blame Trump for New Zealand-style terror is remarkable for another reason. The Democratic congresswoman has been strenuously denying any anti-Semitism despite her use of anti-Semitic tropes to attack American support for Israel.
Perhaps Omar suspects Trump is using mental gymnastics to hide his true intentions because she herself is using mental gymnastics to do the same thing.
In any case, the congresswoman cannot blame Trump for the mosque shooter and deny any reading of her tweets as anti-Semitic. After all, even House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — the second Democratic leader in the House of Representatives behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — subtly attacked Omar in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Omar is trying to have her cake and eat it, too. Perhaps most importantly, she is playing right into the New Zealand terrorist’s hands.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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