A Somali American Muslim women running to replace Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) had previously accused Israel of “evil doings” in the Gaza Strip and accused Israel of being an “apartheid state.”
In a November 2012 tweet, Ilhan Omar, who is currently a Minnesota state representative, said “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
In May, Omar responded to criticism of the 2012 tweet, by accusing Israel of being an “apartheid state.”
“Drawing attention to the apartheid Israeli regime is far from hating Jews. You are a hateful sad man, I pray to Allah you get the help you need and find happiness,” she wrote on Twitter on May 28, 2018.
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However, Omar told ABC News on Sunday that she is not anti-Semitic and accused her critics of “bigotry.”
“These accusations are without merit. They are rooted in bigotry toward a belief about what Muslims are stereotyped to believe,” she said, while not apologizing for her previous tweets.
Another Democratic candidate for Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who upset incumbent New York Rep. Joe Crowley in a party primary late last month, had previously accused Israel of having committed a “massacre” in the Gaza Strip in reference to May 14 clashes at the Israel-Gaza border.