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Pelosi Goes After Ilhan Omar for Tweet Comparing U.S. to Taliban

House Democratic leaders accused Omar of “drawing false equivalencies.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other House Democratic leaders condemned Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in a statement Thursday after she wrote a tweet that seemed to compare the U.S. and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban. “Legitimate criticism of the policies of both the United States and Israel is protected by the values of free speech and public debate,” the group wrote. “But drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.”

Omar’s tweet mirrored a question she asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a committee hearing about where victims of attacks by the Israeli or Afghan governments can go for justice. “We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban,” she wrote. The comment was condemned by 12 Jewish Democratic representatives, The Washington Post reports, who said the remark was as “offensive as it is misguided.” Omar says she was not implying moral equivalency, and the tweet had been taken out of context.