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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi returned to her criticism of fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., During a CNN interview on Sunday minutes before Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D -NY, don’t appear on the same show to detonate Pelosi and his colleagues. for amplifying the “right-wing vitriol” focused on Omar.
The growing division within the party began with a tweet from Omar last week, who said: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the United States, Hamas, Israel. , Afghanistan and the Taliban. “
The comment sparked a fierce backlash from both sides of the aisle, with many resenting any comparison between the United States and Israel with the two terrorist groups. A bipartisan group of 12 members of the Jewish Congress first released a statement claiming the tweet was “as offensive as it was misguided”, before Pelosi and the Democratic House leaders followed up with a rare statement.
“Tracing false equivalences between democracies like the United States and Israel and terrorist groups like Hamas and the Taliban fosters prejudice and undermines progress towards a future of peace and security for all,” the communicated.
But several fellow Democrats Omar also rushed to his defense, including AOC, who said the comment was taken out of context. She also pointed out that the tweet came in the form of a question to State Anthony Blinken, to discuss remedies for innocent victims of violence by the Israeli and Afghan governments.
The Democrat of Minnesota then clarified the remarks, saying that she “in no way equates terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”
Pelosi thanked her for the statement and later told CNN’s Dana Bash during an interview on the network’s Sunday morning show, “State of the Union,” that she considered the incident to be over. .
“Let me just say this. We didn’t chide her,” Pelosi said, brushing off the subject. “What I’m saying is the end of the topic. [Omar]clarified, we thanked her, end of topic. “
But later in the segment, in a separate interview with Ocasio-Cortez, it became clear that the topic was still raw for progressive representatives, who have borne the brunt of recent criticism and threats from the right since the attack. from the Capitol on January 6.
“This whole hubbub started with the right-wing media taking this [Omar]said out of context, ”Ocasio-Cortez told Bash. “And when we feed that, it adds legitimacy to a lot of that kind of right-wing vitriol. It kind of augments that goal. And as someone who’s been through that, you know, it’s very difficult to communicate the scale and how dangerous it is. “
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