Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Rep. Omar shares anti-Semitic Twitter post, Rep. Zeldin accepts her offer to tea

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) offered Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) the opportunity to discuss how to fight religious bigotry over Somali tea.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Source: Ilhan Omar for Congress via Facebook.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Source: Ilhan Omar for Congress via Facebook.

Adding to her anti-Semitic streak, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) retweeted on Thursday an anti-Jewish post that rebuked the claim from “the American Jewish establishment” that Israel is a democracy, a sentiment that Omar said this week makes her “almost chuckle.”

“The American Jewish establishment claims Israel is a democracy for all its citizens. But the nation state law classifies 1.6 million Palestinian Israelis as second class,” posted IfNotNow co-founder Max Berger. “And 4.7 million people live under Israeli military occupation or control without political or human rights.”

The American Jewish establishment claims Israel is a democracy for all its citizens. But the nation state law classifies 1.6 million Palestinian Israelis as second class. And 4.7 million people live under Israeli military occupation or control without political or human rights. https://t.co/hggWCw9Pcr — No More Billionaires 2020????(@maxberger) February 1, 2019

Sharing the post, Omar, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, added: “Many of them truly know this, but don’t want to accept it. In the same way many Americans knew separate yet equal was immoral but remained silent until brave few were silent no more. They can attack, spin my words and vilify me, but they will not succeed in silencing me!”

In response, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) shared an anti-Semitic voicemail his office received on Thursday, where the caller accused the Jewish congressman of calling “everybody anti-Semitic when it comes to you people who have murdered black people systematically, enslaved them” and that he was “worse than Hitler.”

This new VM just came into my office. @IlhanMN, this is just another day in my world as an American Jew in Congress. Would love to know what part of this hate filled, anti-Semitic rant you disagree with? I disagree with all of it. Do you? pic.twitter.com/4WoJqiATCf — Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) January 31, 2019

“This new VM just came into my office. @IlhanMN, this is just another day in my world as an American Jew in Congress,” tweeted Zeldin. “Would love to know what part of this hate filled, anti-Semitic rant you disagree with? I disagree with all of it. Do you?”

Omar called the voice message “heinous and hateful,” and offered Zeldin the opportunity to discuss how to fight religious bigotry over Somali tea.

Zeldin accepted the offer. A time for a meeting between the two has yet to be announced.

The Israeli prime minister vowed to “safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances.”
The then 28-year-old screamed antisemitic things at a group of Jews and assaulted an Israeli in October 2023, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said at the time.
The U.S. secretary of education said that “the campus has been in the spotlight for tolerating egregious antisemitic harassment for years now.”
The Trump administration’s “trade over aid” approach is necessary to root out inefficiencies and waste at the United Nations and elsewhere, the U.S. envoy to the global body said.
The group reportedly stayed at hotel properties that the U.S. State Department has designated as “prohibited accomodations.”
The new office will focus on current and future threats in “cyberspace, outer space, and critical infrastructure,” according to the State Department.