The House of Representatives has voted to kick Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a decision that Republicans vowed to take because of Omar’s history of antisemitic and anti-American remarks.
The resolution was approved in a 218-211 vote after a heated debate in which Democrats accused Republicans of racism and hypocrisy and claimed that the GOP is only policing Democrats for questionable behavior. Omar and several other Democrats openly accused Republicans of racism.
Omar struck a defiant note in a speech shortly before the votes were counted, accusing Republicans of trying to silence her because she is a Muslim immigrant, and promising to continue speaking out.
“Is anyone surprised that I am being targeted? Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy? Or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced? Frankly, it is expected because when you push power, power pushes back,” Omar said.
Omar has accused some Jewish Americans of having “allegiance to a foreign country,” which again prompted backlash among Republicans and Democrats who said it was offensive and antisemitic to suggest supporting Israel is the same as having a foreign allegiance.
A month later, Omar described the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people as “some people did something.” Malliotakis said that line was especially egregious to lawmakers from New York, and is “unacceptable” for any member of the committee to say.
In 2021, Omar called Israel an “apartheid state,” and lumped the U.S. and Israel in with Hamas and the Taliban as political entities that have committed “unthinkable atrocities.”
The Republican justification for removing Omar from the committee was spelled out in the four-page resolution. It states that in 2019, Omar suggested that Jewish people were buying U.S. political support when she said, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,” which struck many — including many Democrats — as an antisemitic trope.
“Representative Omar, by her own words, has disqualified herself from serving on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, a panel that is viewed by nations around the world as speaking for Congress on matters of international importance and national security,” it said.
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) who chairs the House Ethics Committee, said Republicans are only following the “roadmap previously approved” by the Democrat-controlled 117th Congress, which Democrats used to remove a Republican member from all House committees.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said she has seen Omar’s antisemitism and anti-Americanism firsthand.
“As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I’ve sat there and heard the representative actually spew anti-American rhetoric as well,” Malliotakis said of Omar. “I’ve been in that committee room where the representative equates Israel and the United States to Hamas and the Taliban. Absolutely unacceptable for a member of that committee.”