New Delhi: The Republican-majority US House of Representatives voted to oust Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the influential Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday over six past controversial statements including a 2019 tweet viewed as anti-Semitic.
Criticising the resolution passed in the House to remove Omar from the committee (218 votes for and 211 against), the White House termed it a “political stunt”.
Ilhan Omar (40), who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, has often been viewed unfavourably in India. Last April, she took a personal trip to Pakistan during which she met then-Prime Minister Imran Khan and visited Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The Biden administration had at the time clarified that it was an “unofficial, personal” visit that did not in any way represent the US government’s stance on Kashmir.
In the past, Omar has also accused the Biden administration of being “reluctant” in criticising the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s track record on human rights and its treatment of Muslims.
On Friday, the Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, cited Ilhan Omar’s past remarks to justify the ouster including remarks viewed as “anti-Semitic tropes” and her description of 9/11 as a day when “some people did something”.
In 2019, Omar suggested US support for Israel was driven by money from a pro-Israel lobby group, specifically the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “It’s all about the Benjamin’s baby,” she had tweeted — an apparent reference to $100 bills. Omar went on to “unequivocally apologise” for the tweet.
Some newspapers including The New York Times interpreted Omar’s ouster from the high-profile committee as an attempt by Republicans to settle a “partisan score” from 2021 when the then Democrat-majority House removed Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona from their committee assignments.
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Who is Ilhan Omar
Omar was born in Somalia on 4 October 1982, at a time when the country was locked in a civil war. She and her family fled Somalia, and after taking refuge in Kenya for four years, immigrated to the US in the 1990s. In 1997, she moved to Minneapolis with her family.
She was elected to the Minnesota Legislature in 2016, making her the highest-elected Somali-American public official in the US. In 2018, she became one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress.
As her national profile grew, she quickly became associated with “The Squad” — a term coined by former US President Donald Trump to describe the six-member left-wing section of the Democratic Party.
“The Squad” initially comprised four minority Congresswomen — Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. All of them are women of colour and elected representatives under the age of 50.
Democrat Representatives Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri subsequently joined the group.
The Squad frequently butted heads with the Trump administration on immigration and other policy-related issues, which came to a head in mid-2019 when Trump suggested the group’s members “go back” to the countries from where their families migrated to the US.
Omar’s views on India & Pakistan
Omar has been critical of the Modi government’s treatment of Muslims.
On 6 April 2022, she delivered a speech in the US House of Representatives accusing the Modi government of criminalising the “act of being a Muslim in India”. “How are we promoting a free and open region by supporting Modi? Why has the Biden administration been so reluctant to criticise Modi’s government on human rights?”
On 21 April that year, she prompted a strong response from New Delhi after her trip to Pakistan and PoK. The Indian government condemned the visit, adding that it impinged on India’s territorial sovereignty and that it exposed her “narrow-minded” politics.
During the trip, she met then PM Imran Khan at his residence in Islamabad’s posh Bani Gala, where the two discussed areas of “mutual interest” such as rising Islamophobia across the world. Derek Chollet, then counsellor to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had clarified that the visit was unofficial and did not represent US foreign policy agenda.
On 21 June that year, Omar introduced a resolution calling on the US Secretary of State to designate India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ under the US International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. “The Indian government must be held responsible for human rights violations against religious and cultural minorities,” she had said.
In July 2022, Omar voted against a call for an India-specific waiver under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna had proposed the “en bloc” amendment to CAATSA, exempting India, which was eventually passed by a 330-99 vote. Omar and four other members of ‘The Squad’ — Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Bowman and Bush — were among the 99 lawmakers who opposed the amendment.
CAATSA imposes sanctions on countries which conduct trade with the Washington’s adversaries including Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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