Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Monday that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is “acting as the press secretary for Hamas,” the Palestinian terror organization, after she tweeted false information about recent clashes in Gaza.
Omar, who is staunchly anti-Israel, and has a history of antisemitic rhetoric, tweeted Monday:
Omar was responding to claims by Palestinians that 20 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli airstrikes, including 9 children. What the report did not mention was that Israel claimed it had targeted and killed 11 Hamas fighters who had fired rockets at Israeli civilians. The Hamas attack was aimed at Jerusalem, where Palestinians have rioted in recent days, at the instigation of Palestinian terror groups and political leaders. Earlier Monday, a Palestinian mob attempted to lynch an Israeli driver.
Hamas is also known to fire rockets at Israel from densely populated areas in Gaza, placing civilians at risk, and also uses Palestinian civilians as human shields to protect terrorists and weapons caches. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted many — though not all — of more than 150 rockets fired by Palestinians on Monday night. Rep. Omar complained that Palestinians do not have a similar system, failing to note that Israelis are not firing rockets at Palestinian civilians.
Sen. Cruz commented: “Why is a Member of Congress acting as the press secretary for Hamas? Does Biden agree?”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who has even more extreme views than Rep. Omar about Israel, said Monday that the U.S. should not give billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, because of its alleged “racism and dehumanization.”
Omar sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and was recently promoted to a leadership position, despite her views.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new e-book, We Told You So!: The First 100 Days of Joe Biden’s Radical Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.