Tag: Trita Parsi

Ilhan Omar made history in January when she became the first Somali American and one of the first Muslim women sworn into the US Congress. The congresswoman apologized for the things that she said that were problematic and insensitive Logan Bayroth, J Street “Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has quickly created a reputation for herself as a young, bold progressive willing to take on and challenge some of Washington DC’s sacred cows, powerful interest groups and conservative godfathers like Elliot Abrams,” said Wajahat Ali, a New York Times opinion writer and commentator. “She apologized, it seems she gets it,” he said. The comment invoked the $100 bill, which features Benjamin Franklin, and led a Jewish journalist to ask Omar who she believed was “paying American politicians to be pro-Israel”. She nonetheless stood by her argument that the “problematic role of lobbyists” in US politics must be addressed. “And yet certainly from the rightwing and the Republican side of the aisle, there is a desire to try to exploit these controversies not to actually address questions of antisemitism and not to actually advance a better policy debate or outcomes, but to score political points.” ‘It wasn’t a question’ Omar’s tense exchange with Abrams, Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, fell into a similar trap. At a House foreign affairs committee hearing, Omar pressed Abrams over his past, including his role in the Iran-Contra scandal and support for brutal governments in Central America. Ilhan Omar is a Somali refugee. Although Gunson found Omar to be “ill-informed” on the situation in Venezuela, and how it differed from Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s, he said it was incumbent on lawmakers to ask tough questions of officials tasked with overseeing US policy. “It took [Republicans] what, 13 years to notice Steve King?”