Congresswoman Ilhan Omar brought her fight with President Trump back to Minnesota, as she and colleague Rashida Tlaib of Michigan addressed supporters at the State Capitol Monday afternoon. “We are going to fight this administration and the oppressive Netanyahu administration until we take our last breath,” she said. Tlaib initially agreed to Israel’s restrictions for a visit but then changed her mind. Choking back tears, she told reporters it was because of her grandmother. “She said I’m her dream manifested, I am her free bird. So why would I come back and be caged and bow down, when my election rolls her head up high, gave her dignity for the first time,” Tlaib said.
In a letter to Congresswoman Omar, over 50 Minnesota House Republicans say her support of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement against Israel “lends legitimacy to anti-Semites” because it rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Carleton College political analyst Steven Schier says Omar being barred from Israel helps President Trump’s short-term political strategy, “but I don’t think it’s good for Israel because it puts them in the middle of a very bitter political conflict in the United States.”