Ilhan Omar: I Wasn’t Aware There Were Tropes About Jews, Money

Representative Ilhan Omar  (D-MN) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that she was unaware of antisemitic tropes about Jewish people and money.

Anchor Dana Bash said, “What Republicans are saying about you is that there is a pattern of antisemitic and other controversial statements that make you unfit to sit on, in your case, the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I’m told that Republicans presented a list in their meeting, in their private meeting this past week. Included in that list, you said that Israel hypnotized the world. You said Israel is an apartheid regime. You said that politicians with pro-Israel stances were all about the Benjamins, which you very notably apologized for, that you support the BDS movement, which a lot of people think is rooted in anti-semitism, compared the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban. I want to give you a chance to respond to all of that.”

Omar said, “I might have used words at time that I didn’t were trafficking in anti-semitism. When that was brought to my attention, I apologized. I owned up to it. That’s the kind of person that I am. I continue to work with my colleagues and my community to fight against anti-semitism.”

She added, “I certainly did not or was not aware that the word hypnotized was a trope. I wasn’t aware of the fact that there are tropes about Jews and money. That has been very enlightening part of this journey. To insinuate that I knowingly said these things when people have read into my comments to make it sound as if I have something against the Jewish community is so wrong.”

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