WASHINGTON — The escalating protests over the Israel-Hamas war on the nation’s college campuses this week, which included the arrests of nine University of Minnesota students, also provoked an angry clash between Reps. Ilhan Omar and Tom Emmer.
After Omar spoke to the University of Minnesota protesters on Tuesday, the same day the school cleared an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, Emmer, R-6th District, excoriated his Democratic colleague on X.
“Propping up violent protests happening around the country is unacceptable. Omar’s pro-Hamas rhetoric solidifies the Democratic party as the pro-terrorist party,” wrote Emmer, who now has a House GOP leadership position as Majority Whip. “Now more than ever, we must protect Jewish students.”
Omar responded swiftly during an interview on MSNBC.
“(Emmer) is not going to use me to get in good standing with his (House Republican) conference,” Omar said. “He is probably one of the worst whips to exist in the history of Congress. What I did was stand in solidarity with young people who are anti-war, who don’t want their resources being utilized for war.”
Omar also said “what Emmer does is stand with insurrectionists and believes that it is OK for his conference to visit January 6 insurrectionist prisoners and call them political dissidents — this whole conference is a joke and nobody should take them seriously.”
Emmer also wrote to the University of Minnesota on Thursday, requesting an investigation into protests “at the heart of the University of Minnesota’s campus and encouraged by elected officials, including Representative Ilhan Omar.”
Emmer said the protests on the campus were “agitated by professional protestors openly instilling fear of violence against our Jewish students.”
Emmer also continued his campaign against the pro-Palestinian protests on X.
“Jewish students @UMNews deserve to know they will be safe on campus, which is why I am making sure the university is doing everything in its power to keep from turning into the next Columbia,” Emmer said.
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota (CAIR-MN) condemned what it called an “anti-Muslim, Islamophobic” post by Emmer about Omar and students across U.S. campuses.
CAIR-MN said the remarks “could significantly exacerbate the issue of anti-Muslim sentiment and are against students’ freedom of speech and First Amendment rights.”
At the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, which is in her 5th Congressional District, Omar praised protesters who were arrested last week along with her daughter at Columbia University as “brave and patriotic students who stood up to say ‘not on my time are you going to invest in state complacency and genocide; not on my watch are you going to forget 34,000 people in Gaza have been massacred.’”
Omar also blasted Biden and other officials who have condemned antisemitism at campus protests but have not spoken about the 300 Palestinian bodies recently found in a mass grave at a hospital in the Gaza town of Khan Younis.
College protests began after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. But they have spiked in the last week, especially the arrests of more than 100 people last Thursday at Columbia University.
The students are demanding universities boycott and divest from Israel. The demonstrations are largely peaceful, but some demonstrators have strayed into what is considered antisemitic territory.
State troopers cleared a demonstration at the University of Texas, Austin campus on Wednesday and arrests were also made at Boston’s Emerson College and the University of Southern California campus in Los Angeles later that day. Then, at least 15 pro-Palestinian students were arrested by local police at Emory University on Thursday.
In all, more than 400 demonstrators across the country have been arrested since the crackdown at Columbia.
As the campus unrest intensified and spread, lawmakers like Emmer and House Speaker Mike Johnson called for stronger measures.
Johnson, who visited the Columbia campus Wednesday and was greeted with jeers and boos, asked the White House to act and said Biden should eventually consider using military force.
Emmer used the opportunity to slam Biden and call the demonstrators “pro-terrorist antisemites.”
“The Biden administration wants hardworking taxpayers to pay off the loans of these pro-terrorist antisemites, which in turn funds universities with multibillion-dollar endowments that are refusing to keep Jewish students safe,” he posted on X.
Meanwhile, protests on the University of Minnesota campus continue. And students at other Minnesota schools, including Carleton College, are also pressing that their schools divest investments linked to Israel or U.S. military assistance to Israel.
Related
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Carleton College professors Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder recently defended student rights to free speech in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“The shut-up-and-study crowd ignores the fact that virtually every college and university in the United States has a dual pedagogical mission: the development of students’ critical-thinking skills (via knowledge production and dissemination) and the preparation of students to be informed, engaged citizens,” the professors wrote.
They also wrote that the “administrative impulse” to avoid controversy at all costs “is making a mockery of higher education’s avowed commitment to preparing students for citizenship.”
Congress reopens pipeline of U.S. weapons to Ukraine
The U.S. Senate this week approved a massive foreign aid package that also requires the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the popular social media site TikTok or face a U.S. ban.
Ukraine will receive $61 billion from the package, which was supported by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, and 76 other Democratic and Republican senators and quickly signed into law by President Biden.
“It’s going to make America safer, it’s going to make the world safer,” Biden said after signing the bill.
The president said the United States would “right away” send fresh weapons and equipment to Ukraine.
But not all of that new aid will be a gift. One provision, demanded by House Republicans, directs the president to seek repayment of $10 billion in economic assistance as Donald Trump has demanded that any new aid to Ukraine be in the form of a loan. The bill, however, also allows the president to eventually forgive that loan.
A sizable amount of the Ukraine aid money is set aside to “replenish American defense stockpiles.” The legislation also provides billions of dollars for Ukraine to acquire additional U.S. defense systems.
One big boost for Ukraine in the new aid package is that it provides funding for long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems that Kiev has been desperately requesting from the United States.
The missiles are made by Lockheed Martin, which has a presence in Minnesota.
Your questions and comments
Readers this week had a swift response to a story about polling and other indicators of a close race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in Minnesota.
One reader said the story should have focused more on Trump’s legal woes and Biden’s accomplishments, including his elimination of unfair airline fees and his forgiveness of certain student loans.
“Reporting based mostly on polls where things like trials aren’t even mentioned are not as valuable as some might think,” the reader said.
Another reader took issue with analysts who say Minnesota is a second-tier battleground state this year.
“Biden defeated Trump in Minnesota last (cycle.) But now that Trump is standing trial for numerous crimes and losing momentum in his campaigning, some pundits seem to think Minnesota suddenly likes his chances for running the country,” the reader wrote. “If people don’t see the difference between Trump and President Biden, then I think the media should start reporting on what the Biden administration is accomplishing.”Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at [email protected].
Ana Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.
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