CAIR condemns attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar following her statement on ‘Israel’ and US
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned death threats against US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, suggesting they are motivated by racism and Islamophobia.
“It’s time for Congress to reject the racist double standards and the agenda that is being pushed to attack her and her allies,” Kareem El-Hosseiny, government affairs director at CAIR-Georgia, told The New Arab.
There has been backlash to Omar’s recent comments on holding ‘Israel’ and the US accountable for war crimes in occupied Palestine and Afghanistan.
The representative from Minnesota asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken last Monday during a hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee: “You opposed the court’s investigation in both Palestine and in Afghanistan.”
“In both of these cases, if domestic courts can’t or won’t pursue justice, and we oppose the ICC, where do we think victims are supposed to go for justice, and what justice mechanisms do you support for them?”
She followed with a tweet: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinkenwhere people are supposed to go for justice.”
We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity.
We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban.
I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice. pic.twitter.com/tUtxW5cIow
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 7, 2021
Her comments were met with waves of condemnations from lawmakers from both sides, criticising her for putting the US, Israel, in the same sentence as Hamas and the Taliban.
Robert McCaw, government affairs department director with CAIR, told The New Arab that Omar is “daring to say what others in Congress are afraid to say.”
“It’s good to see [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi listening to concerns of the squad without overtly censoring her. There’s a taboo in Congress to speak about America’s historic foreign policy and human rights violations. Ilhan Omar is among the new generation of members of Congress challenging that narrative.”
That time, Hamas movement decried Omar’s comments for equating the Palestinian resistance with the Israeli occupiers.
The Member of the Bureau of International relations of Hamas, Basem Naim, said Ms. Ilhan Omar’s comments, in which she equates victims with perpetrators, are very strange, as they equate the resistance of the Palestinian people with the crimes committed by the occupation state in Palestine and the United States in Afghanistan.
“We appreciate Ms. Ilhan Omar’s positions, defending justice and the rights of those pressed all around the world, especially the just rights of our people, but this kind of equation is deplorable and goes against justice and international law”, Naim said in a press release.
