Rep. Ilhan Omar says Sen. Marsha Blackburn has put “a target” on campus protesters across the U.S. with her latest attack on them.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is urging her colleagues to condemn threats to use the federal government to suppress university students and faculty over their involvement in anti-genocide protests. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar this week urged her colleagues to condemn the latest Republican threat against the thousands of university students and faculty who have protested U.S. complicity in Israel’s assault on Gaza, after Sen. Marsha Blackburn suggested the protesters have “promoted terrorism” and called for them to be surveilled by the federal government.
“Any student who has promoted terrorism or engaged in terrorist acts on behalf of Hamas should be immediately added to the terrorist watch list and placed on the [Transportation Security Administration] No-Fly List,” said the Tennessee Republican.
Blackburn’s comments came nearly two weeks after a solidarity encampment set up by students at Columbia University — and the suspension and arrests of more than 100 participants — galvanized students at dozens of schools across the United States and around the world to call for their institutions to divest from Israel and for the U.S. to cut off military funding for the Middle Eastern country.
More than 1000 students, educators, and other supporters have been arrested, with videos of particularly aggressive police responses at schools including Emory University in Atlanta, Washington University in St. Louis, and University of Texas at Austin further sparking anger among opponents of Israel’s bombardment.
Omar (D-MN) called Blackburn’s comments “insanely dangerous.”
Blackburn previously denounced the protesters as “unruly” and “terrorist sympathizers.”
A sitting Senator, labels Americans protesting against a foreign country accused of carrying out a genocide funded with our tax dollars as terrorists and puts a target on their back to be attacked. This is insanely dangerous and somehow no one will condemn it. pic.twitter.com/TWKiUpDqZx
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 30, 2024
Numerous reports have described how the anti-war protests have been peaceful until police officers began violently arresting attendees, while opponents have shared “escalating unhinged calls to crack down” on the demonstrations, said Intercept reporter Murtaza Hussain.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) also this week wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging him “investigate and prosecute” organizers of the protests” and accusing them of “conspiring to violate the civil rights of a religious minority,” referring to Jewish Americans.
Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called on President Joe Biden to summon the National Guard to clamp down on the protests.
Johnson’s call was echoed by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).
“The calls from Cotton and Hawley to deploy the National Guard are not about anyone’s safety—many of the pro-Palestinian protesters, against whom the might of the U.S. military would be aimed, are Jewish,” wrote Adam Serwer at The Atlantic. He recalled that in 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fatally shot four young students at Kent State University.
“Sending the National Guard to campuses facing Vietnam War protests led to students being killed, including some who had nothing to do with the protests, rather than to anyone being safer,” wrote Serwer. “The most likely outcome based on past precedent would be an escalation to serious violence. Which might be the idea.”
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Please Donate to the
Spring Fund Drive!
Omar is a leading representative in congress of Democratic Socialists of America. A party that has voted billions for Palestinian genocide and NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia orchestrated by Biden and the Democrats.
The DSA is a faction of the Democratic Party whose function is to channel the working class behind the Democratic Party, one of two main capitalists parties of war and terror in the United States.
Pseudo-socialists whose record in congress is one of working class betrayal.
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely: Call on Pope Francis to visit Gaza to stop the bombing
Code pink: petition: Hold CNN Accountable for genocide in Gaza.
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will: Donate.
Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.
Let us call for a No Fly-Zone over Gaza!
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
Not forgetting that, with the US supporting and arming israel, is the cause of all these protests.
Is Marsha being blackmailed? Have the genociders kidnapped Marsha Blackburn’s grandchildren and are holding them for ransom? Are they being held incommunicado in prisons without charge and being starved, raped and tortured on a daily basis, as the many thousands of Palestinian children are, and have been for many years in Israeli prisons? Or is she just a clueless idiot? Could she possibly be that evil? Most likely clueless and too ignorant to lead. Disappointing. Stupidity real does equate to evil here in this.
I’m sorry to be so sensitive about this but: this article is one-sided and biased, only focuses on “Republicans” when Genocide Joe is in charge and the Ds are in lock-step in true bipartisan fashion. Common Dreams needs to be more careful to not engage in hypocrisy and not (indirectly or directly) endorse Genocide Joe or the D party.
The entire Progressive Caucas ought to be vocally standing behind Omas’s assessment. Instead of keeping silent the entire caucas could be educating the public including these Republicans apparently ignorant of the rights to assemble and freedom of speech with some lectures about the differences between apartheid settler colonialist states and democratic nations. Silence instead of rebuttal underscores the lies and militaristic authoritarian BS as though the truth and democratic.
It is, of course, the Zionist Israeli government which is engaged in terror. (See bl a Tom Suarez, “The State of Terror” and
James Bamford, “Spy/Fail”).
We should all be indebted to our youth who show the courage , insight and humanity.
Suggestion: Read the UN OCHCR report at the UN of April 23, 2024. –Peter Loeb
It is dangerous for the students, but they have already made a tremendous contribution by exposing the treachery of our liberal institutions to a demographic that is very hard to reach – our polite society of managerial class of affluent American families. We need our kids, who in their recklessness and disregard for authority, can be much braver than their parents who have spent a lifetime being conditioned by our corporate beaurocricies being conditioned to look the other way, lest our livelihoods be jeoptlradized. It is really a beautiful thing to behold and gives hope for the future in these dark times.
America showing ITS REAL FACE…
I cannot help but think that this is the Netanyahu regime pulling strings and lashing out, of course with Biden’s tactic support. No matter what it does or how its complicit Western partners try to cover, I see no future for Israel. It’s not even a pariah. More like a rabid dog. With Biden’s help, it will drag the US down with it.
The way you break a hegemonic power is to force it to reveal itself. Just what is happening in Israel and America, destruction by their own hands.
The FSA Fascist States of America.