MSNBC’s Hayes: If You Don’t Like U.S. Being Grouped with Terrorists, You Should Be Mad at American Actions, Not Omar

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” host Chris Hayes defended Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) grouping the United States and Israel with terrorist groups and stated that if you don’t like the United States being lumped in with terrorist groups, “you should turn your ire towards whatever it is the U.S. has done to put us in that category, and not on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for pointing it out.”

After playing a clip of Omar’s questioning of Secretary of State Tony Blinken at a hearing Hayes said, “The congresswoman was asking Secretary Blinken where he thinks victims of alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, can go for justice if local courts, say Israeli courts or Afghanistan courts, will not look into these cases, and if the U.S. opposes the International Criminal Court or ICC from investigating these alleged crimes when it comes to Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was referencing the fact that there are active International Criminal Court investigations of all the entities she named. … Now, that’s all factual, right? This is a factual recitation of the things happening in the International Criminal Court. The implication, of course, of the question is, how do we move to a system in which there is actually, in a global sense, equal justice under the law? That it’s not just ruled by the powerful, who will, of course, not investigate their own government’s crimes, but some kind of investigatory body that investigates the crimes with no fear of favor or powerful and less powerful countries alike. That’s the point she’s making, based on the facts before the ICC.”

After recounting the controversy over Omar’s tweet on the exchange, Hayes concluded, “Sometimes when you tell the truth, you reveal something your audience is not ready to hear. So, if you have a problem with the grouping of these entities together, and I understand why you would, you should turn your ire towards whatever it is the U.S. has done to put us in that category, and not on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for pointing it out.”

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