Chelsea Clinton Joins Forward Editor In Calling Out Omar’s Anti-Semitic Tweet
Democratic congressional candidate the Midterm elections, Ilhan Omar, speaks to a group of supporters at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 2, 2018. Image by Getty Images
In a tweet to Forward Opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, Representative Ilhan Omar expressed that she believes AIPAC paid politicians to be pro-Israel.
The statement, which is false because AIPAC doesn’t make political donations, led several notable figures to join Ungar-Sargon in condemning the Minnesota Democrat for drawing on the anti-Semitic trope of bribery.
The Twitterstorm began on Sunday when Omar responded to California representative Kevin McCarthy’s call to have her punished for previous statements against Israel. “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” she tweeted, referring to the $100 bill.
Ungar-Sargon tweeted to her, asking who the freshman congresswoman thought was paying off politicians.
“AIPAC!” Omar wrote.
AIPAC! https://t.co/UdzaFUEfrh
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 11, 2019
Please learn how to talk about Jews in a non-anti-Semitic way. Sincerely, American Jews. https://t.co/qo3BU2Pqgn
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) February 11, 2019
It caught the attention of figures such as Chelsea Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who spoke out against anti-Semitism.
Co-signed as an American. We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism.
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 11, 2019
In our conversation today, Congresswoman Omar and I agreed that we must use this moment to move forward as we reject anti-Semitism in all forms. https://t.co/UpZA3DNgQs pic.twitter.com/1Z6rH65e3M
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) February 11, 2019
The controversy comes less than a month since Omar apologized for a past anti-Semitic tweet, in which she wrote “Israel has hypnotized the world” during the war with Gaza.
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
