U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn debunked a series of claims about Israel and Jewish students made by Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) after the Democrat claimed her rhetoric was “insanely dangerous” to anti-Israel protesters on college campuses.
Following a nationwide spate of anti-Israel encampments on university campuses, Blackburn posted to the social media platform X on Monday that students who have “promoted terrorism” or engaged in terrorist activities “on behalf of Hamas should be immediately added to the terrorist watch list and placed on the TSA No Fly List.”
Omar, who is currently the subject to controversy due to her claim that pro-Israel college students support genocide, claimed Blackburn’s suggestion was dangerous to the protesters.
The Tennessee U.S. senator, according to Omar, “labels Americans protesting against a foreign country accused of carrying out a genocide funded with our tax dollars as terrorists and puts a target on their back to be attacked. This is insanely dangerous and somehow no one will condemn it.”
Blackburn replied by alluding to a series of controversial statements made by Omar about Jewish people or Israel.
The senator wrote, “Despite what you’ve said, [Omar], Jewish students aren’t ‘pro-genocide,’ history won’t be on the side of anti-Semitic protesters, the US and Israel aren’t responsible for ‘crimes against humanity,’ the IDF is an army, and Hamas is a terrorist group, and Israel hasn’t ‘hypnotized the world.'”
Despite what you’ve said, @IlhanMN, Jewish students aren’t “pro-genocide,” history won’t be on the side of anti-Semitic protestors, the US and Israel aren’t responsible for “crimes against humanity,” the IDF is an army, and Hamas is a terrorist group, and Israel hasn’t… https://t.co/MSDP3AOHfU
— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) May 1, 2024
Blackburn’s comments come as Omar faces a potential censure in the U.S. House of Representatives after she claimed Jewish students at Columbia University who support Israel also support genocide.
“I actually met a lot of Jewish students who are in the encampment, and I think it is really unfortunate that people don’t care about the fact that all Jewish kids should be kept safe,” said Omar.
The Democrat then declared, “We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they are pro-genocide or anti-genocide.”
Omar urged last October for the United States not back a “war crime” by Israel, which she claimed was engaged in “collective punishment” of Palestinians living in Gaza.
Previously, in 2019, she defended her 2012 social media post that accused Israel of “evil doings” and having “hypnotized the world.”
“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,” wrote Omar about a 2012 strike against Hamas. In 2019, she declared, “Those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that moment.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Pennsylvania Daily Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Marsha Blackburn.
