Clyburn: Ilhan Omar’s Experience ‘More Personal’ than Holocaust Is to Many Jews
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) on Wednesday defended Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) over her latest antisemitic outburst, arguing that her experience of fleeing violence in Somalia is “more personal” than Jews whose parents survived the Holocaust.
Omar is facing blowback after suggesting last week that pro-Israel groups pressure members of Congress to pledge “allegiance” to a foreign country. In an interview with the Hill, Clyburn criticized reports omitting mention of Omar escaping Somalia and spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before immigrating to the U.S. “There are people who tell me, ‘Well, my parents are Holocaust survivors.’ ‘My parents did this.’ It’s more personal with her,” said Clyburn. “I’ve talked to her, and I can tell you she is living through a lot of pain.”
Clyburn is the latest high-profile Democrat to attempt to defend Omar’s repeated trafficking in anti-Jewish tropes. 2020 Democrat presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) issued statements on Omar, raising concerns that condemning the Minnesota Democrat could both make her a target of violence and stifle policy debates regarding Israel.
WTF?
Yes, my father escaping the Nazis as a child was more personal to him than to me. Is that her point? That it wasn’t her father, but her generation? Well, that’s a bit tautological, isn’t it? She’s so busy screwing guys in and out of her family that she doesn’t know how to make a decent point.
Is there some connection between fleeing violence in Somalia and anti-semitism? I don't get it.