Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) refused to condemn the killings of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, ducking reporters’ questions.
“I’m going to go for now,” the controversial Somali American congresswoman said Thursday to reporters asking for her response to the slayings of Yaron Lischinsky, 28, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, who were set to be engaged next week.
Soon after stonewalling reporters’ questions Thursday morning, Omar weighed in on the murders on X.
“I am appalled by the deadly shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum last night. Holding the victims, their families, and loved ones in my thoughts and prayers. Violence should have no place in our country,” she wrote.
The couple had been attending an American Jewish Committee’s ACCESS Young Diplomats Reception when they were brutally gunned down Wednesday night.
Omar, 42, long a vocal critic of Israel with a propensity for putting her foot in her mouth, has been repeatedly accused by congressional colleagues of making antisemitic comments, including equating the Jewish state with the Taliban and co-sponsoring legislation declaring the founding of Israel a “catastrophe.”
Republicans booted her from the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee in February 2023 over these and other outbursts.
Last April, the Anti-Defamation League accused Omar of “blood libel” for claiming Jewish college students could be divided into just two camps — “pro-genocide” or “anti-genocide.”
She also downplayed a viral video showing harassment of a Jewish student by anti-Israel protesters on the UCLA campus as “people moving around.”
In a White House briefing Thursday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she was “saddened and outraged” by the shooting in DC, and blasted Omar’s refusal to denounce the attack as “despicable.”
