Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) criticized Alabama Republicans after they approved a resolution over the weekend calling for her to be removed from Congress.
Omar took to twitter to respond to the resolution, saying she was elected by the people of Minnesota, not the Alabama Republican Party. She also suggested that the Alabama GOP has no room to criticize her after they nominated former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in the 2017 Senate race after he had been accused of sexual misconduct with young women.
“Sorry, [Alabama GOP], but this is a representative democracy,” Omar wrote. “I was elected with 78 percent of the vote by the people of Minnesota’s 5th District, not the Alabama Republican Party. If you want to clean up politics, maybe don’t nominate an accused child molester as your Senate candidate?”
The resolution called for Alabama’s congressional delegation to “proceed with the expulsion process in accordance to Article 1, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution,” saying that Omar engaged in “rhetoric that explicitly runs counter to American values and patriotism by falsely accusing U.S. armed forces of committing war crimes while on mission to liberate her home country of Somalia.”
The resolution goes on to say that Omar “dismissed the 9/11 terror attacks waged by radical Islam on the World Trade Center” and that she “sympathized with a convicted terrorist” by advocating for “sentencing leniency.”
Lastly, the resolution reads that Omar has a “disturbing record of using anti-Semitic language that includes alleging Jewish money is used to buy American influence regarding its policy toward Israel.”
Scott Simpson, public advocacy director for the civil rights organization Muslim Advocates, released a statement condemning the resolution as “hateful” and “dishonest,” saying the resolution is an effort to vilify American Muslims.
“The text of the resolution reads like a laundry list of the most common anti-Muslim stereotypes: that Rep. Omar is un-American and anti-Semitic, that she disrespects the troops, that she is an ungrateful immigrant and that she sympathizes with terrorists,” Simpson said in the statement. “These meritless slurs are constantly hurled at American Muslims in public life in order to silence and discredit them.”
In the statement, Simpson also condemned recent remarks made by Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL. In an interview on “The Jeff Poor Show” last week, Brooks said that “Muslims, more so than most people, have great animosity toward Israel and the Jewish faith” and that a “growing influence” of Islam in the Democratic party will lead to the party becoming “very strongly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel.”
Simpson denounced Brooks’ recent comments as “anti-Muslim bigotry,” saying that comments like Brooks’ are an attack not just on Omar but on the entire Muslim community.
“Dishonest smears like these are used against almost every American Muslim who exercises their right to serve their country,” Simpson said in the statement. “They are designed to intimidate them out of public service and tarnish their credibility. They will not work. When American Muslims in public life are attacked because of their faith, Muslim Advocates and countless Americans of conscience will stand up for what’s right.”
Omar, a Somali refugee who became one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress last year, has received criticism in the past for her comments on issues such as the United States’ relationship with Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
