Pelosi Defends Ilhan Omar: Her Tweets Not 'Intentionally Anti-Semitic'
Democratic House Speaker defends freshman congresswoman remarks
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she doesn't believe Rep. Ilhan Omar's recent series of recent tweets were "intentionally anti-Semitic."
Pelosi intends to expand a House resolution condemning anti-Semitism to include e other biases against blacks and Muslims.
Democratic Party leaders, including Pelosi, have been frantically trying to limit the political ramifications of Omar's anti-Semitic remarks.
But the House Democrats have pushed off a vote for a resolution to condemn anti-Semitic remarks by Omar, and will send the measure through a House committee first, Pelosi said.
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Pelosi, D-Calif. said does not know when the House will consider the resolution.
“It just depends on when they are finished writing the resolution,” Pelosi added.
According to The Washington Examiner: The House was first expected to take up a four-page resolution Wednesday denouncing anti-Semitism.
It was to serve as a veiled rebuke of Omar, D-Minn., in response to a string of tweets that created a bipartisan uproar, as many on both sides said they were anti-Semitic.
But Pelosi said the committee will now draft a new resolution with added wording to denounce prejudices against more groups, including Muslims and blacks. Omar is a member of the panel.
Democratic leaders backed down on the first resolution after some lawmakers in the caucus complained it would unjustly target Omar and should also include a rejection of anti-Muslim and other biases.
Omar is receiving death threats; Democratic lawmakers told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
She was also pictured in a poster displayed by a Republican operative in the West Virginia capital that seemed to connect her, or Muslims in general, with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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That poster, Pelosi said, is among the reasons Democrats are rewriting the resolution to include more groups.
“I don’t think this is just about comments by Congresswoman Omar, which I do not think were intentionally anti-Semitic," she said.
Pelosi added that Omar had been targeted by anti-Muslim attacks such as the poster in West Virginia.
“It has raised interest in having some resolution about [denouncing] anti-Semitism, of course, always, anti-Islamaphobia, always, anti-White Supremacy, always,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi said she did not know what the final version of the resolution would ultimately denounce.
“We will see what the committee comes up with,” she said.
“They have an array of concerns and priorities they are addressing.”
Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said the resolution should denounce “all hate,” and not just anti-Semitism.
“Anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia, racism, all that stuff,” Clyburn said as he headed to his office Wednesday.
Omar invited more criticism after she implied politicians in Washington were "pushing for allegiance" to Israel.
Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib also made a similar remark Senate Republicans were more loyal to Israel in January.
The congresswoman's accusation that Jewish politicians could be vulnerable to having "dual loyalties" has been made in various contexts for years, and widely seen as a religious-based attack.
