Rep. Ilhan Omar likens anti-Israel resolution to boycotts of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union
Progressive Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's resolution seeks to push back against U.S. laws banning the boycott of Israel; reaction from George Mason University law professor Eugene Kontorovich.
George Mason University law professor Eugene Kontorovich responded to Rep. Ilhan Omar's resolution affirming the right to boycott Israel, as she likened it to the boycotts of Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union.
On Friday, Kontorovich said on "Fox & Friends" that not only does he find the comparison to Nazi Germany "absurd," but a boycott of Israel is essentially a justification to "discriminate against Jews because of their relationship to Israel."
High-profile Democrats have decried the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in recent years, calling such a resolution blatant anti-Semitism.
"When the world treats everybody one way, and the Jew or the Jewish state another way, there is only one word for it: anti-Semitism. Let us call out the BDS movement for what it is," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a 2018 AIPAC conference.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighed in at the same conference, saying we must "be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies masquerading as policy - and that includes BDS."
When asked why Speaker Pelosi doesn't put an end to the vote, Kontorovich said that the Democrats "are torn" and that they will have to make a decision "between their fear and desire to cater to their far-left progressive wing, and what they really believe in."
Many in Omar's party have acknowledged that a BDS resolution is anti-Semitic, and have fired back.
California Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, one of the more senior Jewish lawmakers in the House, told The Jerusalem Post that the resolution proposed by the fellow Democrat is not serious.
“I can’t imagine that any committee is going to mark up or take seriously any pro-BDS resolution,” Sherman said.
Rep. Eliot L. Engel -- a New York Democrat who’s facing a primary challenge backed by Justice Democrats, a group aligned with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- didn’t specifically mention Omar but criticized the BDS movement as a “cancer.”
Pro-Israel Democrats, meanwhile, proposed an anti-BDS resolution that passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, accusing the boycott movement of promoting “principles of collective guilt, mass punishment, and group isolation.”
Earlier this year, the House failed to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, passing instead a resolution to condemn hatred in any form.
While Omar's resolution doesn’t explicitly name Israel or the pro-Palestinian BDS movement, Omar, D-Minn., later told media outlets that the resolution concerns the Jewish state.
Fox News' Lukas Mikelionis contributed to this report.
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