by Luke Rosiak
Two days after the AJ+ television network published a video questioning the Holocaust, Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar repeatedly gave the network a boost.
On May 18, AJ+ Arabic posted a seven-minute video to social media with the caption “The gas chambers killed millions of Jews … So the story says. How true is the #Holocaust and how did the Zionists benefit from it?” The Jews “exploited the Holocaust for their agenda and made the whole world focus on their murders and forget the other victims.”
“People are divided between those who deny the annihilation, others who think that the outcome was exaggerated, and others yet who accuse the Zionist movement of blowing it out of proportion,” it said.
On May 20, Omar — who has repeatedly been accused of anti-Semitism — retweeted someone saying “<3 @ajplus.”
That same day, she shared an AJ+ story, saying that “we have a duty to confront hate and bigotry whenever we see it.”
Omar’s spokesman Jeremy Slevin did not respond to a request from The Daily Caller News Foundation asking about what steps, if any, Omar took to “call out hate and bigotry” in regards to the Holocaust video.
AJ+ is a youth brand of Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera issued a statement on May 19 saying that “Dr. Yaser Bishr, Executive Director of Digital Division, stated that Al Jazeera completely disowns the offensive content in question and reiterated that Al Jazeera would not tolerate such material on any of the Network’s platforms. In an email to staff he also called for the mandatory bias training and awareness program.” It said two journalists would be disciplined.
Despite the apology, Al Jazeera was apparently trying to keep westerners from finding out the contents of the video it published — with an assist by Twitter. The social media platform subsequently blocked English translations of the video, displaying only a grey box that says that “the media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”
Al Jazeera is owned by the royal family of Qatar, a tiny nation with massive oil money. Qatar has funded numerous institutions in the U.S. and exerted aggressive legal pressure to keep details under wraps.
Omar’s Democratic colleagues have frequently gone to bat for her to fight off accusations of anti-Semitism, but Omar has not seemed to modify her behavior.
She described the 9/11 attacks as “some people did something.” In March, the House passed a bipartisan resolution initially inspired by her alleged Islamophobia. The resolution was ultimately watered down and did not name her. She laughed and played on her phone in the House chamber as it passed.
Omar is from the failed state of Somalia, whom the United States accepted as a refugee, but in October 2017, she appeared to vilify America and elevate that country. “In his selective memory, he forgets to also mention the thousands of Somalis killed by the American forces that day! #NotTodaySatan,” Omar wrote in a tweet.
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Follow Luke on Twitter. Email [email protected]. Read his book Obstruction of Justice, about connections between Pakistan and congressional IT aides.
Background “Al Jazeera” by Al Jazeera.
