Woke Virginia school board member wanted to ban terms like ‘radical Islam’

A Virginia school board member who sparked controversy for refusing to support a 9/11 tribute also wanted to ban terms like “radical Islamic terror” and “jihadists” from classes about terror attacks.

Abrar Omeish, 28, said teachers in Fairfax should use a “culturally sensitive” guide that doesn’t “explore the definition of terrorism” to inform children about the atrocity.

Omeish’s 2021 recommended guidance said the word terrorism “is often used in a biased way” and classes on the 9/11 attacks, which claimed the lives of 2,977 victims, should focus on the impact on “communities of color.” , including Muslim Americans.” ‘.

Omeish, who in 2021 refused to support a commemoration for the victims of 9/11, is the youngest Muslim woman in Virginia to hold elected office. Details of the lesson plan emerged just days after she declared that America’s victory over the Japanese at the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II showed what “human evil is capable of.”

Those comments were made last Thursday in reference to Remembrance Day, a day to commemorate the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The holiday occurs on the same calendar day as the first American landings on the island of Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945.

Omeish, the youngest Muslim woman in Virginia to hold elected office, wanted to ban terms like “radical Islamic terror” and “jihadists” from classes on 9/11.

His latest controversy arose after he voted against a commemoration for the victims of 9/11. Omeish’s actions have been described as “deaf”, “ruthless” and “un-American”.

A Republican official in Fairfax said foxnews: ‘Your cruel attacks on the memory of the victims and heroes of 9/11 should be the last straw. They weren’t just incredibly deaf: they were ruthless and, frankly, un-American.”

Other recommendations in the teaching guide, published by the Institute for Family and Youth, include that teachers should “wear cultural items from Muslim countries as a show of support,” such as scarves, while teaching about 9/11.

Teachers are encouraged to use the term ‘endless wars’ about conflicts in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Surprisingly, the guide states that such conflicts “only harm Black and Latino communities.”

Elected to the position in 2019 at just 24 years old, Omeish also has a history of anti-Israel rhetoric and has said the district’s admissions policy is anti-Asian biased.

His father, Esam Omeish, 55, is also a board member of the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque, where three of the 9/11 hijackers prayed before carrying out the attacks.

Esam is the chief of General Surgery at Inova Alexandria Hospital and a past president of the Muslim American Society (MAS).

The mosque previously employed a man suspected of working with al-Qaeda. That man, Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed by a US government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama in 2011.

When he voted against the 9/11 tribute last year, Omeish said it would cause “harm” because it did not “acknowledge the widespread and unwarranted structural discrimination and ethnic and religious discrimination after 9/11.”

‘As a nation, we remember a jarring event, to be sure, but we choose to forget, as this resolution does, the fear, ostracism, and collective guilt felt by Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, Sikhs, Hindus, and all brown or blacks. other people who have been mistaken for Muslims since that day for the past two decades.

‘Why are we forgetting the experience of these families, their traumas?’

Omeish is also the daughter of Esam Omeish, 55, the prominent Chief of General Surgery at Inova Alexandria Hospital. Essam is also a board member of a Fairfax mosque that hosted three of the 19 9/11 hijackers.

Omeish’s father is on the board of directors of a mosque that previously employed Anwar al-Awlaki, a man suspected of working with al-Qaeda. al-Awlaki was killed by a US government drone strike, ordered by President Barack Obama, in Yemen in 2011

Last Thursday, he said he talked about Japanese Remembrance Day as something to “reflect on,” later adding: “The days when, you know, Iwo Jima unfortunately happened and set a record which I really, hate to say.” It is human evil. able to.’

Lasting for more than a month, from February 19 to March 26, 1945, the battle for the island of Iwo Jima is one of the most famous in Marine Corps history. Nearly 7,000 US Marines from the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions were killed trying to wrest control of the island from the Imperial Japanese Army.

Omeish later issued a comment to “set the record straight” on his Iwo Jima comments, saying that the US government’s role in the battle was “not correct” and that there was “unnecessary bloodshed” by the Japanese.

“During the school board meeting, I brought up both points to nuance our discussion of these events,” he said.

The comments followed a series of other controversies at the school district, including its decision to delay notifying students that they had received National Merit Awards.

Having withheld the awards as part of a progressive campaign designed not to hurt the feelings of students who didn’t get a scholarship, in some cases for up to two years, the district now faces the wrath of parents and is the subject of an investigation. by the State Attorney General’s Office.

In May 2021, a series of anti-Israel social media posts by the school board member came to light, in which he called Israel an “apartheid” state that “kills Palestinians.”