Whip Tom Emmer wrote a letter to the University of Minnesota demanding that the administration explain how it will protect Jewish students from a flood of pro-Gaza protests that have at times turned anti-Semitic.
Demonstrations by passionate young progressives have spread across the country this week, including at the University of Minnesota, where Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., appeared in solidarity with protesters. The Republican leader of the House of Representatives attacked his colleague from Minnesota.
‘Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent comments at the University of Minnesota should be seen for what they are: full acceptance and encouragement of anti-terrorist and anti-Semitic protests across the country,” Emmer said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
“Jewish U of M students deserve to know they will be safe on campus, and that’s why I’m making sure the university is doing everything in its power to avoid becoming the next Columbia.”
Whip Tom Emmer wrote a letter to the University of Minnesota demanding that the administration explain how it will protect Jewish students from a flood of pro-Gaza protests that have at times turned anti-Semitic.
Omar was expelled from the Foreign Affairs Committee last year for posts about X that invoked anti-Semitic tropes. Earlier this year, Emmer called for an ethics investigation into Omar over her controversial “Somalia first” comment.
Emmer accused Omar of “publicly praising the actions of students who created a hostile and anti-Semitic campus for Jewish students.”
“We are seeing students justify their illegal and non-compliant activities on campus as an exercise of their First Amendment rights, which is not the case,” Emmer continued.
Omar represents Minnesota’s 5th District, where the university is located in Minneapolis.
The No. 3 House Republican noted that protests in Columbia had at times turned violent, with some students chanting “Jews, Jews go back to Poland” and “Hamas, we love you.” We also support their rockets.’
“Unfortunately, students at the University of Minnesota were inspired by the Columbia University protests and replicated similar anti-Semitic activity,” Emmer said.
Minnesota students shouted the pro-Palestinian rallying cry “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” and carried a flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Hundreds of people demonstrated on the University of Minnesota campus on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, to protest Israel’s war against Hamas.
. Earlier in the day, nine anti-war protesters were arrested when police dismantled a camp that organizers said was set up to show solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine.
Emmer asked the university to reveal its protocol for protecting Jewish students from the rise in anti-Semitism since October 7, its tools for “de-escalation” if protests turn violent and what the disciplinary measures will be for students who were arrested in the camp.
He said he was “pleased” to see that the university was “not taking this illegal conduct lightly,” but noted that “this has not deterred protesters and the threat of escalation still exists.”
‘Columbia University allowed their ‘Gaza Solidarity Camp’ to escalate to the point where they had to move to hybrid classes. Does the University of Minnesota plan to take drastic measures, such as online learning, if the situation continues to worsen? she asked.
Omar appeared in Minnesota on Tuesday night, hours after university police arrested nine people who had set up camp near the campus library and ignored police warnings to disperse. Hundreds of people had demonstrated to demand his release.
The Minnesota Democrat praised student activists for “putting their bodies on the line to end the genocide in Gaza.”
He criticized President Joe Biden and all elected leaders who have condemned anti-Semitism in such protests for not focusing more on the now 300 Palestinian bodies now lying in a mass grave at a hospital in Khan Younis.
“It has been incredibly painful over the last five days to watch the discovery while there is a discovery of a mass grave… that our media, our elected politicians, our president, every single elected leader is spending time and energy talking about protests as if you’re not all here to give voice to the genocide taking place in Gaza.’
The congresswoman then headed to Columbia University in New York City, where her daughter, a 21-year-old student there, said she had been left homeless and without food after a suspension and arrest for her involvement.
Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, 21, was among 100 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Columbia University on Thursday.
Omar praised the protesters who were arrested along with her daughter as “brave and patriotic students” who stood up “not in my time are they going to invest in state complacency and genocide, not during my term are they going to forget that 34,000 people in Gaza have been massacred… to allow the highest number of children killed in a war in 10 years to be produced with our tax dollars.’
The congresswoman was one of 37 Democrats who voted against Israeli aid over the weekend, as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza since October 7 surpassed 34,000.
In an appearance at her daughter’s campus in New York, Omar toured the Columbia camps in Gaza, which have become the epicenter of a nationwide movement.
“I had the honor of seeing firsthand the pacifist camp at Columbia University,” Omar posted in X after his visit.
‘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.”
Students are largely demanding that their universities divest from arms manufacturers that supply arms to Israel.
Protests at other institutions have become such chaos that the University of Southern California canceled its “main stage” graduation ceremony and arrested 97 protesters.
About 108 people were arrested Wednesday night at Emerson College in Boston, and protest camps have sprung up at universities including Harvard, Brown, the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Polytechnic State University in Humboldt. .
On Wednesday, a group of New York House Republicans led by Speaker Mike Johnson traveled to the Columbia campus in solidarity with Jewish students and called on Speaker Minouche Shafik to resign if she cannot restore order. on campus.
Johnson was greeted with boos and jeers saying ‘go home, Mike!’ and ‘Mike, you suck.’
The speaker attacked the “anti-Semites” who “gnash their teeth and demand that the State of Israel be wiped off the map and that our innocent Jewish students be attacked.”
Despite protests from student activists, Johnson pressed ahead.
‘Things have gotten so out of control that the school canceled in-person classes and now they have come up with this hybrid model, where they will discriminate against Jewish students. “They are no longer allowed to come to class for fear of their lives,” he stated. “And it is detestable, since Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take power.”