Ilhan Omar retweets Ady Barkan thread denouncing Nancy Pelosi, pushing Jewish money claims
Just hours after apologizing for making comments deemed anti-Semitic, Rep. Ilhan Omar retweeted a thread defending her claim that campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee buy support for the group’s positions.
Ms. Omar praised the writer, Ady Barkan, who told of being a staffer on a long-shot congressional campaign in 2006 when the candidate agreed to take stances on two issues in exchange for a maximum contribution from AIPAC.
“Your courage can’t be matched. I am often in tears thinking about how you won’t be with us in this fight and how I am going to miss your presence and courage. In solidarity my friend, in solidarity,” Ms. Omar wrote to Ady Barkan.
She said she had been educated by colleagues that such a claim was offensive and anti-Semitic, playing into a trope that Jewish money controlled politics.
But she said she remained convinced that AIPAC’s donations, like any other lobbying group’s, were poisonous to politics.
Mr. Barkan offered his story on Twitter Monday to back her up.
He claimed that in 2006, as part of a “long-shot Democratic Congressional race in deep red Ohio,” the candidate, whom he named only as “Vic” and described as a “hippie doctor … opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” took the maximum amount the law allowed for a political action committee to donate, likely $5,000 at a time when the campaign was desperate.
Read More: Washington Times
