Republican Representative Crenshaw
Republican Representative CrenshawReuters

Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from Texas, criticized Illinois Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for her attacks on America, Israel and the Jewish community in an interview with the Jewish Insider.

Crenshaw noted that Omar's defenders have claimed that he took her comments about 9/11 out of context, but he said that context is "key" to understanding her comments.

“She’s made so many awful comments,” he told the Insider. “You take people’s comments in context. She’s made a ton of terrible anti-American, anti-Jewish comments. This is just who she is."

“She’s said terrible things about Israel,” he added. “This is a pattern. And you have to call that out.”

Crenshaw, who has visited Israel twice in recent years, noted that the organized visits in which he participated “really do try to to allow you to see both sides of the argument with respect to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And it was really eye-opening.”

Crenshaw said that he supports President Trump's approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that he "doesn’t want to see “another Clinton Parameters-type plan… because we all know it just wouldn’t work. It doesn’t make sense on the ground and in Israel.”

He asked why the Democratic party has been moving away from Israel in recent years. “Well, because there’s a deeper psychology behind how American leftists think. They view everything through a lens of oppressor and oppressed. Everything.”

According to Crenshaw, the lens of oppressor and oppressed causes Democrats to “view Israel as an oppressor, they view Palestinians as the oppressed — and they will not listen to any kind of evidence that suggests otherwise.” He stated that this worldview is “manifesting in increasing anti-Israel sentiment.”