Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-NY, said he had not experienced any prejudice against Jews in his personal life or in politics until Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was elected to Congress, Jewish Insider reported.
“I spent four years in the New York State Senate, and through my first four years in the U.S. House of Representatives, I didn’t experience it inside the actual chamber until the beginning of 2019,” he said. “That became an issue within the House Democratic Caucus in the first half of 2019.”
Radical anti-American politicians—including Democratic Reps. Alexandria Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Omar—were elected in the 2018 congressional midterms.
Omar said in February 2019 that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pays members of congress to support Israel, Jewish Insider reported.
“It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” she said.
When asked to clarify her comments, she asked who “is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel?”
“AIPAC!,” Omar.
Zeldin said the response from Congress was not as severe because of Omar’s affiliation with the Democratic Party.
“I guarantee you that we would have passed a resolution that singularly, emphatically and forcefully condemned antisemitism,” he said.
“There would have been no moral equivalencies—that member would have been removed from her committee assignments, and it would have been basically a unanimous effort in doing so.”
Zeldin’s comments came after he was asked questions during a conference call with the American Jewish Committee about anti-Semitism within the Republican Party.
One of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, Zeldin said he has been called a Nazi or Nazi supporter “several thousand” times.
“I’m not aware of any of it coming from within the Republican Party,” he said.
Zeldin said there has been lackluster support for President Donald Trump from Jews because Israel is “not popping at the top of their list” of policy priorities.
“I’ll talk to a Jewish voter, and it’s possible that if I ask them for their top 15 issues, they might just not mention Israel,” he said.
