The head of the Anti-Defamation League on Saturday called on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to apologize after she accused some Jewish students of being “pro-genocide” in a statement on antisemitism.
“It is patently false and a blood libel to suggest that ANY Jewish students are ‘pro-genocide,’” tweeted ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt, charging Omar with putting students’ lives at risk.
“It is gaslighting to impute that Jewish people are somehow at fault for being harassed and menaced with signs and slogans literally calling for their own extermination,” wrote Greenblatt.
“It is abhorrent that a sitting member of Congress would slander an entire group of young people in such a cold, calculated manner,” he said.
In an interview with a local Fox News television station following a visit to the unauthorized anti-Israel protest encampment at Colombia University on Friday, Omar had said: “It is really unfortunate that people don’t care about the fact that all Jewish kids should be kept safe.”
“We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students whether they are pro-genocide or anti-genocide,” she said.
Watch this clip. It features @IlhanMN walking through @Columbia proclaiming that "Jewish students… should not have to tolerate antisemitism… whether they’re pro-genocide or anti-genocide."
It is patently false and a blood libel to suggest that ANY Jewish students are… pic.twitter.com/XbP5J4VspE
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) April 28, 2024
The U.S. representative toured the campus with her daughter Isra Hirsi, who was suspended from Barnard University earlier this month over her involvement in the illegal student protests.
Hirsi was one of more than 100 people arrested and summoned for trespassing after a group of demonstrators set up the “Gaza solidarity encampment” at Columbia to protest Israel’s war with Hamas terrorists in Gaza following the murder of some 1,200 people and the kidnapping of more than 250 men, women and children in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Omar said on April 20 that she was “enormously proud” of her daughter’s arrest and subsequent suspension, writing on X that Hirsi’s actions sought to push “her school to stand against genocide.”