Rep. Omar: Americans ‘Should Be More Fearful of White Men’

Zachary Stieber
By Zachary Stieber
July 25, 2019Politics
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Rep. Omar: Americans ‘Should Be More Fearful of White Men’
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in Washington on Jan. 10, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of the two Muslim members of Congress, said that Americans “should be more fearful of white men” in an interview with Al Jazeera, a Qatari government-owned broadcaster that has received criticism for its coverage of the Holocaust.

The interview, conducted in 2018 while Omar was still a candidate for the seat she now holds, featured the host, Mehdi Hasan, asking Omar about the rise of Islamic terror attacks.

“A lot of conservatives, in particular, would say the rise in Islamaphobia is a result not of hate but of fear. A legitimate fear they say of ‘jihadist terrorism,’ whether it’s Fort Hood or San Bernardino, or the recent truck attack in New York. What do you say to them?” he asked.

Omar responded, “I would say that our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country.”

Omar did not cite evidence for her claim.

“We should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men,” she added later.

At another point, Omar was asked about President Donald Trump’s travel ban against seven Muslim-majority countries that have struggled to contain terrorism.

“If we were really being honest about what could be masqueraded as a national security issue, we know that no one from any of these countries has ever posed a threat in this country,” Omar claimed.

She said the ban was “political football.”

In the interview, Omar also claimed that many of the people who voted for Trump in 2016, including about half of Minnesota voters, didn’t think he’d do what he promised while campaigning.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Omar in recent weeks for her extreme rhetoric and suggested she return to Somalia and help fix the “broken” government there if she doesn’t like the United States, where she came as a refugee when she was a child.

At a rally in North Carolina on July 17, Trump listed the spate of controversial comments Omar has made recently and in past years, including denigrating U.S. military members involved in Black Hawk Down, seemingly minimizing the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, and making anti-Semitic remarks that she later apologized for.

NTD Photo
President Donald Trump speaks during a Keep America Great rally in Greenville, North Carolina on July 17, 2019. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Omar also asked a judge for reduced sentencing for men attempting to join ISIS, the radical Islamic terror group that’s claimed responsibility for a number of bombings around the world.

Omar said that “punitive measures” like sentencing the men to prison would be unwise and recommended “a system of compassion” that focuses on “inclusion and rehabilitation.”

“The desire to commit violence is not inherent to people—it is the consequences of systematic alienation; people seek violent solutions when the process established for enacting change is inaccessible to them,” Omar wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Fox 9.

“Fueled by disaffection turned to malice, if the guilty were willing to kill and be killed fighting perceived injustice, imagine the consequence of them hearing, ‘I believe you can be rehabilitated. I want you to become part of my community, and together we will thrive.’ We use this form of distributive justice for patients with chemical dependencies; treatment and societal reintegration. The most effective penance is making these men ambassadors of reform.”

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