Ilhan Omar
Ilhan OmarReuters

Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Wednesday criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after she said in an interview on CNN that Jewish Democrats are not “partners in justice.”

“We condemn the disgraceful comments made by Representative Ilhan Omar (MN-5) in a CNN interview in which she accused her Jewish Congressional colleagues, along with the Jewish people as a whole, of not being committed to the pursuit of justice. Her tweets this morning with examples of individual Jews and Jewish organizations that she finds noteworthy do not mitigate her bigoted comments. We remain greatly concerned with the pattern of her statements attacking the Jewish people and, specifically in this case, Jewish members of Congress,” said Dianne Lob, Chair, William Daroff, CEO, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Vice Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an eloquent voice for Jewish values, and was fond of the Torah passage 'Justice, justice shall you pursue.' Seeking justice is a core tenet of our faith, a tenet sustained throughout 2000 years as an oppressed, stateless minority and championed since 1948 by the State of Israel,” they added.

“Representative Omar needs to better understand the history of the Jewish people and the commitment to social justice of her Jewish colleagues in Congress in order to understand true Jewish values, including the mandate of tikkun olam (social justice), chesed (acts of kindness) and Tzedaka (charity) that guide the work of the American Jewish community, the Jewish State, and the Jewish people everywhere," the Jewish leaders concluded.

In the interview with Jake Tapper, Omar defended a recent statement comparing Israel and the United States to Hamas and the Taliban, saying she did not regret the comparison.

When she was asked if she understood why Democrats, especially fellow Jewish Democrats, found her previous comments on Israel to be anti-Semitic, Omar shot back that they were not “partners in justice.”

In response to Omar’s recent comparison between Israel and the Taliban, 12 of the 25 Jewish Democrats in the US House of Representatives published a statement said the grouping of the United States and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas in remarks about pursuing war crimes prosecutions gives “cover to terrorist groups” and called on Omar to clarify her earlier statements.

Omar then fired back at her Jewish colleagues and said, “It’s shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for ‘clarification’ and not just call.”

“The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment & silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable,” added Omar.

She later issued another clarification and claimed she had been misunderstood.

In May, Omar called Israel's retaliations for Gazan rocket fire on civilians an "act of terrorism," but failed to condemn the rockets themselves, or Hamas' use of Gazan civilians as human shields.

She also came under fire in 2019 after she suggested on Twitter that Republicans were attacking her at the behest of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

Omar subsequently issued a half-hearted apology before ultimately deleting the controversial tweets.

In 2019, Israel announced it would bar entry to Omar and fellow Muslim congresswoman Rashida Tlaib over their support for BDS.