Pelosi defends Omar: 'I feel confident' she is not anti-Semitic

Source: The Hill | March 7, 2019 | Mike Lillis

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Thursday amid the ongoing controversy over recent remarks by the freshman lawmaker that have been widely condemned as anti-Semitic.

Pelosi said Omar’s comments invoking the anti-Semitic “dual loyalty” trope were insensitive, but are no indication that Omar — one of two Muslim women to join Congress this year — harbors ill feelings towards Jewish people.

“I don’t think that the congresswoman perhaps appreciates the full weight of how it was heard by other people, although I don’t believe it was intended in an anti-Semitic way,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. “But the fact is, if that’s how it was interpreted, we have to remove all doubt.”

Pelosi and her leadership team are working on a resolution that would condemn hate speech, which is expected to get a vote on the floor Thursday afternoon. The resolution comes in direct response to Omar’s comments, although Democratic leaders — under pressure from members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other liberal Omar allies — are broadening the language well beyond anti-Semitism. And Pelosi on Thursday rejected the idea that the measure concerns Omar at all.

“I thought the resolution should enlarge the issue to anti-Semitism, anti-Islamophobia, anti-white supremacy, and that it should not mention her name,” Pelosi said. “And that’s what we’re working on — something that is one resolution addressing these forms of hatred, not mentioning her name, because it’s not about her. It’s about these forms of hatred.”

Omar sparked a firestorm of controversy over the weekend when, appearing at a public event in Washington, D.C., she suggested that U.S. supporters of Israel have an “allegiance to a foreign country.”

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