Omar Attracts Criticism for Suggesting Some Jewish College students Are ‘Pro-Genocide’

Consultant Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, whose daughter was among the students arrested at a Columbia College protest encampment towards Israel’s actions in Gaza, steered whereas visiting the protesters on campus final week that some Jewish college students supported genocide.

Ms. Omar, a Democrat, was rejecting the argument that the protests had been antisemitic, noting that lots of the contributors had been Jewish.

“I think it is really unfortunate that people don’t care about the fact that all Jewish kids should be kept safe, and that we should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they’re pro-genocide or anti-genocide,” she stated.

Earlier within the week, the Republican Home speaker, Mike Johnson, used his personal go to to Columbia to recommend that President Biden ought to summon the Nationwide Guard to varsity campuses, a prospect that dropped at thoughts the Nationwide Guard’s killing of four unarmed student protesters at Kent State College in Ohio through the Vietnam Battle. He was accompanied by his Republican colleague Anthony D’Esposito, who accused the pro-Palestinian protesters of being “proud that you’ve been endorsed by Hamas.”

Consultant Jared Moskowitz of Florida, who got here to Columbia with different Democrats who help Israel, likened some protesters to the white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

And at Washington College in St. Louis, the Inexperienced Occasion presidential candidate Jill Stein joined an illustration and was arrested together with dozens of different protesters.

As pro-Palestinian pupil protests have unfold and intensified within the wake of a police crackdown at Columbia, a procession of politicians have visited campuses with phrases of help or condemnation. The visits underscore how profoundly the protests have change into intertwined with American politics — and the extent to which many elected officers are taking sides on what, if not for the police response and the statements from nationwide figures, may need been a small subplot within the a lot bigger story of what’s occurring in Gaza.

Ms. Omar’s suggestion that some Jewish college students had been pro-genocide drew backlash, with the Anti-Defamation League’s chief calling it “blood libel” and CNN asking Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Sunday whether or not he was “comfortable” with it. (Mr. Sanders, who’s Jewish and helps the protests, stated that opposition to antisemitism was Ms. Omar’s “essential point,” and that “the word ‘genocide’ is something that is being determined by the International Court of Justice.”)

Ms. Omar responded to the A.D.L. criticism by citing feedback reported by Palestinian and different Arab college students on the College of Massachusetts Amherst, together with “kill all Arabs” and “level Gaza.” She wrote on social media, “This is the pro-genocide I was talking about, can you condemn this like I have condemned antisemitism and bigotry of all kind?”

The campus visits started final Monday with the group of pro-Israel Democrats: Mr. Moskowitz, Daniel Goldman of New York, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Kathy Manning of North Carolina. In an interview with CNN afterward, Mr. Moskowitz referred to feedback like “Go back to Poland” and stated, “I know the people saying this aren’t, you know, white Aryan males with tiki torches, but they have the same message.”

At many factors, there was a divide between pupil encampments — which have been peaceable and have included many Jewish contributors — and demonstrations simply off campus, the place some folks have made overtly antisemitic feedback.

Mr. Johnson, the Home speaker, visited Columbia on Wednesday with a number of different Home Republicans: Mr. D’Esposito, Mike Lawler and Nicole Malliotakis of New York, and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina.

Mr. Johnson met privately with Jewish college students, then referred to as on Mr. Biden to usher in the Nationwide Guard and on Congress to “revoke federal funding to these universities if they can’t keep control.” He stated, referring to antisemitism, “Powerful people have refused to condemn it, and some have even peddled it themselves.”

A number of the protesters jeered him, and one pro-Israel counterprotester dismissed his visit as “a political stunt.”

That go to, in flip, got here per week after the occasion that precipitated the escalation of the protests: The president of Columbia, Nemat Shafik, who goes by Minouche, testified earlier than a congressional committee below questioning led by Consultant Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, who has grilled a sequence of faculty presidents over allegations that they had been failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

Ms. Shafik referred to as the New York Police Division to interrupt up a pro-Palestinian encampment the following day. Greater than 100 college students had been arrested, however the protesters rebuilt the encampment, and the protests rapidly unfold to different campuses nationwide.

Mr. Johnson and his group had been adopted by Ms. Omar, who was adopted by two different Democrats from the progressive “Squad” — Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York, who met with the protesters at Columbia to precise help.

And a whole lot of miles away, at Washington College in St. Louis, Ms. Stein was arrested on Saturday together with dozens of scholars.