The Roots of Ilhan Omar’s Extremism and Anti-Semitism
Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism and Islamic supremacism are very likely a product of her upbringing and an accompanying U.S. policy failure on assimilation.
In her native Somalia, Omar grew up in a completely Judenrein (free of Jews) country. Many in the region have come to rely upon and promulgate anti-Jewish mysticism, folklore, and conspiracy theories, in addition to Islamic fundamentalist teachings to come to their conclusions about Jews. In much of the Middle East and North Africa, the Jews are to blame for all of one’s struggles in life. And this actually has very little to do with the State of Israel. Anti-Jewish sentiment has remained consistent in the Islamic world for centuries.
Abe Greenwald described the anti-Jewish folklore that permeates the Islamic world in an article for Commentary magazine earlier this year. “In the Greater Middle East, from which Omar’s family hails, conspiracy theory is the coin of the realm, and much self-inflicted grief is blamed on dark Jewish magic,” Greenwald wrote in January, in reacting to Omar’s earlier anti-Semitic comments.
In recent years, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted a global anti-Semitism survey. Throughout most of the Islamic world, anti-Semitism remained overwhelming, widespread, and consistent. However, Somalia was not included in the anti-Semitism survey, possibly for safety reasons, as it is largely a failed state.
The values of Somalia are as far removed from American values as you can get. In Somalia, Islam is the only acceptable religion. Everyone must be a Muslim or be prepared to face tremendous consequences for “insulting Islam.” This is something that Rep. Omar appears to have no issue with, although she rejects a Jewish-based state in the Middle East. Omar remains active in the internal politics of Somalia. She recently endorsed a candidate for president there.
Moreover, blasphemy laws in Somalia maintain that blasphemy of Islam (not accepting Islam as your faith or mocking Islam) is punishable by multiple years in prison, or even a death sentence if necessary. The constitution of Somalia maintains that “Islam is the religion of the State,” adding that “No religion other than Islam can be propagated in the country.”
These restrictions in the Somali constitution are completely antithetical to the Western values that we hold so dear in the United States. Yet when Somali refugees make their way to the United States, it appears that for the most part, the Somali values system remains intact.
See, for example, this investigative video from filmmaker Ami Horowitz on the Somali community in Minnesota:
It has become quite clear that too many in the Somali community in Rep. Omar’s district have failed to adopt Western values. It’s certainly legitimate to ask whether it’s ever a good idea to import individuals whose values and customs are so foreign to Western values. Logic may tell us that these refugees may find a more accommodating home elsewhere in the Islamic world. But legislators and past presidents who have imported these communities en masse have also imposed U.S. policies that have worsened the issue. These policies allow the pooling together of refugee communities, essentially encouraging them not to assimilate.
And these U.S. sanctuary policies, coupled with broken immigration and refugee policies, have turned Somali refugee communities, particularly the one in Ilhan Omar’s district, into Islamic terrorism recruitment havens.
Somali refugees in Ilhan Omar’s Minnesota district have become the terrorist recruitment capital of the United States. As ISIS came to power, dozens of Somalis left Minnesota to link up with the Islamic terrorist groups. But long before ISIS, others in Omar’s district routinely hopped on the next flight out to join al Shabaab- and al Qaeda-linked groups in Africa.
We cannot ignore the alarming statistics from Rep. Omar’s district. “FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS,” Fox News reported in February.
Given what we know about Ilhan Omar, we should not at be at all surprised when we continue to hear about her Islamic supremacist connections and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Omar is an unassimilated refugee who has, according to the sums of public evidence in front of us, rejected the American way. And if U.S. policies continue to defer to the customs of the homelands of refugee communities, in addition to entirely ignoring the anti-American customs of migrant communities, we can surely expect to see many more Ilhan Omars join the ranks of Congress. (For more from the author of “The Roots of Ilhan Omar’s Extremism and Anti-Semitism” please click HERE)
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