Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz lambasted his colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Tuesday for her comments suggesting Jewish Columbia University students were split into two camps supporting and opposing genocide of Palestinians last week.
During a visit to the Morningside Heights campus Friday, Omar (D-Minn.) declared to a reporter that “we should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they are pro-genocide or anti-genocide.”
Moskowitz (D-Fla.), told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday that Omar’s comments amounted to “pouring gasoline” on an unstable situation.
“I got 10-year-old and seven-year-old Jewish children,” Moskowitz said. “I don’t know if they’re pro-genocide or anti-genocide. I guess I’ll talk to them about that.”
Moskowitz is one of a trio of Jewish Democrats — along with Dan Goldman of New York and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey — who have repeatedly criticized pro-terror, anti-Jew protests at Columbia and other campuses across the US.
“I remember when Charlottesville happened [in 2017], it was universal condemnation,” he said Tuesday. “And the people who tried to ignore that or explain it away or say, ‘It’s not everybody’ — we condemned those people.
“But here, for some reason, when it’s ‘Jews, go back to Poland,’ ‘Bomb Tel Aviv,’ all of a sudden it’s peaceful.”
Moskowitz was joined during the interview by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) to push the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023, aimed at clamping down on the campus upheaval.
That legislation would add the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“It’s going to give, obviously, more teeth to the federal government to enforce their rules and regulations,” Moskowitz explained.
“What we’re seeing is, we’re seeing universities complicate it by failing to lead and protect their students, failing to enforce their code of conduct, taking options off the table, giving all the power to the protesters.”
The Post contacted an Omar spokesperson for comment.
Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, was suspended from Barnard College earlier this month following her arrest for disobeying law enforcement directives while participating in anti-Israel protests.
