Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) says she doesn’t regret making her comments last month equating the so-called “crimes against humanity” by the United States and Israel to “unthinkable atrocities” by the Taliban and Hamas.
At the time, the absurd comparison resulted in a much-deserved rebuke by Democrat leaders.
“Drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. 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,” read the statement from Nancy Pelosi and five other House Democrat leaders. “We welcome the clarification by Congresswoman Omar that there is no moral equivalency between the U.S. and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban.”
Omar eventually “clarified” her statement, claiming she was “in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.” But in the wake of attacks from Omar’s fellow squad members, Nancy Pelosi walked back the rebuke of Omar.
“We did not rebuke her,” Pelosi claimed. “We thanked — acknowledged that she made a clarification.”
Omar expressed her lack of regret for her comments in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“Do you regret these comments?” he asked.
“I don’t,” she replied. ” I think it’s really important to think back to the point that I was trying to make. Obviously, I was addressing Secretary of State [Anthony] Blinken.”
Ilhan Omar: "I don't" regret equating U.S. and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas terrorists. pic.twitter.com/XpR0e6kVeo
— Mike Berg (@MikeKBerg) June 29, 2021
Omar’s lack of regret proves once and for all who really has the power in the Democratic Party. Her party’s leadership has excused her repeated anti-Semitism, and Omar knows she can get away with it. There have been calls to remove Omar from the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee for her despicable comments over the years, but it won’t happen on Pelosi’s watch. It will take Republican control of the House to do so. Republicans have lost committee assignments for far less. Earlier this year, Democrats stripped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) of her committee assignments for her past embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories. McCarthy warned Democrats at the time that they’d set a new standard for stripping members of their assignments: “I would remind them what Leader McConnell said when Democrats voted to nuke the judicial filibuster: ‘You’ll regret this. And you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.’”
Related: McCarthy Vows to Boot Omar From Foreign Affairs Committee if GOP Takes Back House
Republicans, however, have done more to hold their own party accountable for offending remarks. For example, former Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was stripped of his committee assignments by House Republicans after the New York Times claims he said, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King denied ever saying that, yet he was still stripped of his committee assignments by his own party. Democrats, however, have given Ilhan Omar a free pass to be as bigoted and anti-Semitic as she pleases. Heck, they’ve proven to be incapable of holding any in their party accountable for anything. For example, Pelosi refused to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from his position on the House Intelligence Committee after it was revealed he’d been the target of a Chinese spy with whom he’d had a relationship. That situation was a “gimme,” and yet Swalwell remains on the committee.
But after repeated offenses, why is Ilhan Omar still on the House Foreign Affairs Committee? It comes down to the inconvenient truth that “The Squad” has the real power in the Democratic Party. Pelosi and the party leadership folded like origami after Omar’s fellow Squad members went on offense against them. Omar expressing no regret over her comments was her victory lap, flaunting her power over her party’s leadership, leaving Pelosi to look like a weak fool.
