Ilhan Omar joins the university’s pro-Palestinian resistance with a speech attacking Biden at the University of Minnesota rally… days after her daughter was suspended for protesting
Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared at a Gaza encampment at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, making her the first member of Congress to publicly support protests that Republicans have labeled anti-Semitic.
The Minnesota Democrat praised the student activists for “putting your bodies on the line to end the genocide in Gaza.”
Omar showed up on campus after nine protesters were arrested on campus when police took down an encampment in front of the library. Hundreds of students had gathered to demand their release.
She railed against President Joe Biden and all elected leaders who have condemned anti-Semitism at such protests for not focusing more on the 300 Palestinian bodies now found in a mass grave at a hospital in Khan Younis.
“It’s been incredibly painful over the last five days to watch as a mass grave is discovered…that our media, our elected politicians, our president, every elected leader is spending time and energy talking about the protests as if you are here not all to give voice to the genocide taking place in Gaza.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared at a Gaza encampment at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, making her the first member of Congress to publicly support protests that Republicans have labeled anti-Semitic.
The Minnesota Democrat praised the student activists for ‘putting your bodies on the line to end the genocide in Gaza’
Omar’s daughter was one of 100 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Columbia University on Thursday.
Isra Hirsi, a 21-year-old Barnard student, was subsequently suspended from the university — saying she was left without food and a place to sleep as she was temporarily banned from campus.
Omar praised the protesters arrested along with her daughter as “brave and patriotic students” who did not stand up on my time, are you going to invest in state complacency and genocide, not under my watch, are you going to forget that 34,000 people were killed in Gaza? slaughtered… to use our tax dollars to make possible the largest number of children killed in war in a decade.”
Isra Hirsi, the daughter of left-wing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, says she has nowhere to live or eat after being suspended for participating in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University.
The congressman was one of 37 Democrats who voted against Israeli aid this weekend as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpassed 34,000 since October 7.
Standoffs between students and universities have become tense as administrators come under pressure to crack down on protests that have sometimes turned into anti-Semitic territory.
The protests, marked by tent encampments on campuses, began at Columbia University and have since spread to higher education institutions across the country.
The students demand that their universities boycott and divest from Israel.
On Tuesday evening, about 200 protesters were arrested for blocking traffic at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, near Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home.
Isra Hirsi, the daughter of left-wing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, says she has nowhere to live or eat after being suspended for participating in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University.
The Minnesota Democrat praised the student activists for ‘putting your bodies on the line to end the genocide in Gaza’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) supports the large encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters who have flooded the Columbia University campus in recent weeks
And back in Columbia, NYPD counter-terrorism officers were sent to campus to clear a days-long encampment.
President Minouche Shafik, under pressure to resign from Republicans, wrote an email to the so-called “Gaza Plaza” group on Tuesday evening issuing an ultimatum to voluntarily dismantle or face eviction.
Meanwhile, more than 130 people were arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest at New York University on Monday evening.
On Monday, Shafik switched classes to a hybrid, remote option, saying that “there have been too many examples of harassing and harassing behavior on our campus in recent days.”
While some Jewish students are involved in the pro-Palestinian protests, some demonstrators have adopted anti-Semitic tactics.
Chabad of Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said some protesters had shouted at Jewish students over the weekend: “All you are doing is colonizing” and “going back to Europe.”