A week after Rep. Ilhan Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, was arrested for protesting at Columbia University, she and her mother, a progressive member of the ‘Squad,’ visited the pro-Gaza camp on campus to enjoy and take selfies with activists.
Hirsi was one of more than 100 people arrested last Thursday for participating in an anti-Israel demonstration. She was also suspended from Barnard College the same day.
The ‘Squad’ member’s daughter later appeared on cable news touting that she herself was homeless and hungry after being kicked out of her bedroom and dining room.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to come home and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to,” he told an MSNBC host last week.
Hirsi also criticized the university for not providing meals, saying there was “no food support, no nothing.”
But her luck changed when she was seen with her congresswoman mother on campus, posing for selfies with fellow protesters just a week after her arrest and suspension.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. (center), walks across the Columbia University campus with her recently suspended daughter Isra Hirsi (right).
Omar seemed to enjoy his tour of the Ivy League school’s Gaza Solidarity Camp, which has been underway for more than a week despite threats from police and the university.
Protesters repeatedly stopped Omar to take photos with the prominent progressive.
Hirsi and her mother Omar caught quite a bit of camera attention during their visit on Thursday.
“I had the honor of seeing firsthand the pacifist camp at Columbia University,” Omar posted in X after his visit to the campus.
‘Contrary to the attacks from the right, these students are joyfully protesting for peace and an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza. “I am amazed by their bravery and courage.”
Her post accompanied a video of her shaking hands with protesters and receiving a warm welcome from students.
Omar’s trip comes a day after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., visited the campus to condemn protesters to a chorus of boos and protests.
Johnson criticized the crowds in Columbia as “lawless agitators and radicals” and questioned their ability to become “America’s leaders.”
He also praised Jewish students who remain committed to their education and have prepared fierce anti-Israel protests to do so.
“We will not remain silent while Jewish students are expected to run for their lives,” the speaker told the crowd.
Johnson, who met with Columbia University President Minouche Shafik before delivering his speech, publicly called on him to resign if he remains unable to control the protests that have broken out on campus.
He also threatened to withdraw federal funding from schools that cannot ensure the safety of their Jewish students.
Omar, on the other hand, encouraged the protesters and praised their efforts.
Gaza Solidarity Camp on Columbia campus houses countless tents
“I have to tell you that I am incredibly moved by your courage and bravery as a student body in putting your bodies on the line to stand in solidarity and end the genocide that is taking place in Gaza right now,” Omar told demonstrators at a protest at the University of Minnesota earlier this week.
He even gave an apparent shoutout to his daughter in his comments: “what started five or five days ago with just 70 students organizing at Columbia University has now become a nationwide campus movement.”
Omar also mentioned a recently discovered mass grave of 200 Palestinians, calling the discovery “incredibly painful” before celebrating the crowd’s efforts to give “voice to the genocide taking place in Gaza.”
But Omar is not the first member of the ‘Squad’ to defend pro-Palestinian protests.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., criticized the NYPD on Wednesday night for deploying counterterrorism units to deal with protesters at Columbia University.
“Not only did Columbia make the horrific decision to mobilize the NYPD against its own students, but the units called in have some of the force’s most violent reputations,” The New York Democrat reported on X.
She was responding to a video of New York Police Department counterterrorism officers dealing with pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sharply criticized the NYPD for deploying counterterrorism units to confront pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University.
NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism by inviting her to come to Columbia University and New York University itself to hear her “comments of pure hate.”
“The NYPD had promised the city that they would not deploy (Strategic Response Groups) to the protests,” Ocasio-Cortez’s post continued. ‘So why are these anti-terrorist units here?’
Later, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell responded to Ocasio-Cortez and taught her and the protesters a lesson.
‘Columbia decided to hold its students responsible for school laws. They are seeing the consequences of their actions. Something these kids were probably never taught,” Chell wrote in response to the Democrat on X.
“Good SAT scores and self-righteousness are no substitute for the law,” the NYPD chief continued. “I’m sure you’ll agree that we need to teach them these valuable life skills.”
She told Ocasio-Cortez to go to college campuses herself to hear the hateful rhetoric protesters have been using.
‘The only incidents that day on campus were the student’s hateful anti-Semitic speech and vile language toward our police officers. I’m sure you agree that any hate speech is unacceptable.
“You should reconsider your comments about simply thanking the NYPD and hate has no place in our society,” Chell added.