American Muslims unhappy with Omar's bigotry

Quanta Ahmed:

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), an American Muslim of Somali origin, shames American Muslims with the anti-Semitism she has brought to Congress.

As a naturalized American and a Muslim woman myself, it was gratifying to see the first Muslim women in American history elected to Congress inaugurated this year.

Now American Congresswomen Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) are among the most empowered Muslim women in the world. They enjoy access to the corridors of American power, the mandate of American constituencies that they represent and influence over domestic and international U.S. policy.

Further, as a migrant to the United States, Omar was granted asylum from her Somali origin and rose from refugee to elected politician in 23 years; few other nations can offer a dispossessed refugee such extraordinary opportunity.

But as a Muslim devoted to combatting contemporary anti-Semitism by serving within the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, I am deeply dismayed to see Omar brandished anti-Semitic beliefs almost immediately after assuming office. They are beliefs she has held for years. (Leaders of Minnesota’s Jewish community approached her prior to her election to express deep concern regarding her anti-Semitic leanings).

Omar’s half-hearted apology when faced with appropriate bipartisan rebukes rings hollow. At the least, her ejection from the House Foreign Affairs Committee is warranted — Omar’s approach to Middle East policy, which is contaminated by anti-Semitism, cannot be considered in America’s interest.

Worse, as a Muslim expert in Islamism, I recognize her anti-Semitism as emblematic of deep Islamist sympathies. Political scientists identify anti-Semitism clearly circumscribed within Islamist ideologies and charters to consistently lionize a new Islamist anti-Semitism as a central Islamist tenet contingent on the extinction of the Jewish people. Her affiliation with Islamists must be examined.

Also consistent with overt Islamist sympathies — both Omar and Palestinian American Tlaib have publicly affiliated with BDS — the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement that seeks to expunge all international engagement with Israel, including even academic and medical settings.

Both Democrats and Republicans agree it is correct to label BDS anti-Semitic. In electing these Muslim women, Americans now confront rank Islamist anti-Semitism among the highest offices of political power.

For Muslims in America, we are faced with the realization that Muslim anti-Semites claim to speak for our Islamic faith and our Muslim identity. They invite hostility to our own communities, and more misunderstanding of Islam within America. This is despite the reality that Islam reveres Judaism, the Torah, Moses and the Jewish people as legitimate believers, and Jerusalem as belonging only to the Jews — all documented within the Quran. The Quran’s truths will go unknown in the shadow of Muslim congresswomen spewing anti-Semitism and all Muslims will be thus branded anti-Semites.
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I can understand Ahmed's concerns.  She is right about Omar and Tlaib.   However, some scholars have found passages in the Quran that are Jew-hatred.  Ahmed is also right that Omar has no business being on the Foreign Affairs Committee.