US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has sparked outrage online after she used a poem written about the victims of the Holocaust to defend fellow colleague Ilhan Omar, in response to a 'dangerous' tweet from the president.
Omar was once again the subject of controversial debate this week, after remarks she made last month in reference to the 9/11 terror attacks as ‘some people did something’, resurfaced.
An outraged Donald Trump tweeted ‘WE WILL NEVER FORGET’ on Friday night, accompanied by a 43 second video that showed Omar’s comment during a speech to the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), interspersed with footage from September 11.
The video didn’t show Omar’s speech in full and Ocasio-Cortez was quick to clap-back at the president’s outburst, believing the tweet to be a ‘dangerous’ declaration of prejudice that could possibly incite harm against politician already facing a slew of death threats and abuse.
‘Members of Congress have a duty to respond to the President’s explicit attack today,’ Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday. ‘[Ilhan Omar’s] life is in danger. For our colleagues to be silent is to be complicit in the outright, dangerous targeting of a member of Congress. We must speak out.’
Alongside the rally cry, AOC also shared a picture of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem ‘First they came…’ that was inspired by the Holocaust and hangs on the wall of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
The poem reads: ‘First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.’
Despite the poem sharing similar themes to her tweet, AOC has been widely blasted by critics who believe the use of Niemöller’s famed piece is ‘disturbing’ in defense of Omar.
The outrage stems from a number of comments the Somali-American Democrat has made over the past few months regarding Israel.
The criticism was first ignited after she suggested US support of the middle-eastern country is ‘All about the Benjamins’ – which many interpreted as a nod to the bigoted trope that rich Jews control the world.
‘There's something deeply disturbing about AOC making Holocaust references to defend an open and unrepentant anti-Semite who is merely being criticized,’ conservative commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted.
Senior editor of the Federalist, David Harasanyi added: ‘This is just a shameful attempt to chill speech. It belittles both the real victims of 9/11 and the Holocaust.’
Others took a different interpretation of AOC’s use of the poem, with one accusing her of attempting to ‘compare the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler’.
However, on Saturday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rushed to defend Omar and said the president 'shouldn’t use the painful images of 9/11 for a political attack.'
In a statement released while she was in Germany visiting American troops that 'the memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence.' She said 'it is wrong for the president, as commander-in-chief, to fan the flames to make anyone less safe.'
In her full speech to CAIR last month, Omar said: 'Far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and frankly, I’m tired of it and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it.
‘CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.’
Since the controversial comments resurfaced, Omar has defended what she said, using an example of George W. Bush making similar remarks in the wake of the tragedy and marking the difference in reaction.
Omar has said the furor surrounding the comments - which she believes were taken out of context - stem from the fact that she is Muslim, and not white
‘Was Bush downplaying the terrorist attack? What if he was a Muslim,' she asked on Twitter.
Progressive Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, lined up to support Omar in response to AOC’s plea for fellow lawmakers to condemn Trump's tweet targeting Omar.
They called the president's behavior 'disgusting' and noted that Omar was already receiving death threats.
The Washington Post first noted that Bush once referred to the terrorists as 'the people who knocked these buildings down' in remarks at Ground Zero a few days after the attack.
Omar piggybacked on the example in a tweet that linked to the original article.
She had said at a fundraiser for CAIR that the organization 'was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.
'So you can’t just say that today someone is looking at me strange and that I am trying to make myself look pleasant. You have to say that this person is looking at me strange, I am not comfortable with it, and I am going to talk to them and ask them why. Because that is the right you have,' she stated.
The remarks earned her new criticism, having already weathered allegations that she's an anti-Semite.
'First Member of Congress to ever describe terrorists who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 as "some people who did something,"' GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw said in an accusatory tweet. 'Unbelievable.'
Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade said on the morning program he co-hosts, 'You have to wonder if she’s an American first.'
The New York Post on Thursday even went as far as to splash a photograph one of the World Trade Center towers collapsing in a ball of flames, with the banner: 'Rep. Ilhan Omar: 9/11 was 'some people did something.'
The Washington Post's fact checker pointed out that Bush once said something similar in a Sept. 14, 2001 speech, when he spoke through a bullhorn at Ground Zero.
Bush told rescue workers in an impromptu speech through a bullhorn that the nation mourns victims of the Twin Towers attack.
'I can’t hear you!' one told him. Bush said, 'I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!'
It was part of an intentional effort by Bush not to refer to the attackers as Muslims.
Three days after the impromptu speech delivered by bullhorn, Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. to condemn attacks on Muslims.
He said: 'The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war.
'Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.'
Omar connected the dots on Friday and pointed out in a tweet that Bush did not come under assault for having referred to the attackers as 'people' instead of murderers or terrorists.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference shortly after Omar sent the tweet that she had not connected with the congresswoman yet.
'I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with her to see the nature of her comment, and as is my custom with colleagues I call them in before I call them out. So I’ll look forward to hearing from her,' she said. 'She was in transit, we tried to reach her, she was in transit. So I’ll have some comment after I do speak to her.'
Democrats were at a retreat in Northern Virginia on Thursday, where the comments, that were revealed in an April 8 video posted to Twitter, were a topic of discussion.
Ocasio-Cortez defended her colleague to reporters staking the retreat out.
'We are getting to the level where this is an incitement of violence against progressive women of color,' the New York representative said.
Ocasio-Cortez smacked Crenshaw on Twitter for declining to cosponsor the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund while having the 'audacity to drum resentment towards Ilhan w/completely out-of-context quotes.'
She told the Texas congressman to 'go do something' about Republicans making insensitive comments.
Sanders answered her call half-an-hour later. The Vermont senator and 2020 presidential candidate said in a tweet: 'Ilhan Omar is a leader with strength and courage. She won't back down to Trump's racism and hate, and neither will we. The disgusting and dangerous attacks against her must end.'
Left-wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who's also seeking the presidency, was close behind her 2020 opponent with a tweet that that accused Trump of 'inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman—and an entire group of Americans based on their religion.
'It's disgusting. It's shameful. And any elected leader who refuses to condemn it shares responsibility for it,' the Massachusetts senator wrote.
Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar joined her Senate colleagues in supporting Omar hours later. She was careful to note that she does not condone the congresswoman's remarks but found Trump's tweet to be offensive.
The Democratic presidential candidate who shares her home state with Omar said: 'Someone has already been charged with a serious threat on Congresswoman Omar’s life. The video the President chose to send out today will only incite more hate. You can disagree with her words—as I have done before—but this video is wrong. Enough.'
Other candidates including Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg and Julián Castro also condemned Trump's attack on Omar.
Buttigieg, who served in the U.S. Navy reserve, tweeted: 'I served oversea, at risk to my life, in the struggle against such terrorism. But it can only be fully defeated if we have leaders at home who defuse its capacity to sow hate - hate against Islam or against any number of "others."
'The president today made America smaller. It is not enough to condemn him; we must model something better.
'The threats against the life of @IlhanMN make clear what is at stake if we fail to to do this, and to beat back hate in all all its forms.'
Omar spoke about threats of violence she had received, as she defended herself against the 'double standards' she said she faces, to Late Show host Stephen Colbert earlier in the week. She that she is 'as American as everyone else' and suffers from anti-Muslim discrimination.
Last week, police in New York arrested a man for allegedly threatening to 'put a bullet in her [expletive] skull.'
She told Colbert: 'I took an oath - I took an oath to the Constitution. I am as American as everyone else is.'
The issue of whether to link al Qaeda and other terrorist attacks including 9/11 to Islam became a campaign issue in 2016 when Trump accused former Barack Obama of refusing to call out 'radical Islamic terrorism.'
He then leveled the same charge at Hillary Clinton, accusing her of being in 'total denial' for not calling the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the work of a radical Islamic terrorist.
She had tweeted: 'Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.'
Trump said, 'She is in total denial. And her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the world.'
However, when he made his first foreign trip as president to Saudi Arabia, the home country of a majority of the 9/11 attackers and its mastermind Osama bin Laden, he struck a different note.
'This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations,' Trump said. 'This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.'