The Two Faces Of Ilhan Omar

We’ve all met people who have two faces, especially in the political arena, and the Americans appear to have more of these than most. The worst offender is undoubtedly Hillary Clinton, who appears to make common cause with the little people in the public arena while saying something entirely different to her powerful backers behind closed doors.

Ilhan Omar is a fairly recent arrival on the American political scene, and has caused more than her fair share of controversy in that time, but leaving aside her “complicated” personal life, she has shown herself to be a very strange fruit indeed. One can only wonder at what her imam thought about her posing with a couple of drag queens at the local “Pride”.

Omar first came to national and international prominence along with three other newly elected representatives. All four being female and described with that hideous label “women of color”, they were soon named The Squad. The most charismatic of the four is or perhaps was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Unfortunately, while she is a looker, every time she opens her mouth she says something stupid, and when she is refuted, rather than admit her error, she doubles down.

Rashida Tlaib is a simply horrible woman, and along with Omar is the first Moslem woman to be elected to Congress. And the only one who thinks mother is half a word. Ayanna Presley is a none-too-bright feminist; Omar calls herself a feminist, but can a Moslem woman really be one?

Omar made waves by doing the unthinkable, not only criticising Israel but implying that some politicians took money from the Israeli Lobby. Her comment “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” was roundly condemned as anti-Semitic. But was it? The reality is that there is a powerful Zionist lobby in the United States, one that is not shy about exercising its power or even boasting about it, but should a mere Gentile, and a Moslem woman at that, make a similar observation, that can only be anti-Semitism. No! Omar’s comment was no more outrageous than Norman Finkelstein’s candid observation that rich American Jews had President Obama in their pocket. Sadly, she backed down and apologised.

In the UK, the late Gerald Kaufman became the victim of a whispering campaign for telling the same inconvenient truth about Zionist Jews and big money.

While Omar’s fearlessly calling out rich Jews was to be commended, she showed less candour with Islamist terrorism. Her alluding to the 9/11 attacks as “something” that “some people did” was also condemned, and rightly so.

Like many  politicians of both sexes and from all backgrounds, Omar has received abuse and the occasional death threat. One of these was deemed credible, and in November last year, Patrick Carlineo found himself in front of  a judge for threatening to put a bullet in her skull.

Instead of acting like a typical feminist “victim” whining about post-traumatic stress disorder and turning up at court with a therapy dog, Omar wrote a two page letter to the judge which included:

“Punishing the defendant with a lengthy prison sentence or a burdensome financial fine would not rehabilitate him. It would not repair the harm he has caused. It would only increase his anger and resentment…I ask you to show compassion in your sentencing.”

Those are wise words, the wisdom of which most of her fellow travellers will never appreciate with their incessant whining about intolerance of all kinds and calls for even more repressive legislation.

If her comments reflect well on Omar they also raise a question, namely why the Hell is she a Democrat?