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US House passes broad anti-hate bill after pressure from allies of Muslim congresswoman

US Representative Ilhan Omar in the Rayburn House Office Building on March 6, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

The US House of Representatives has passed a resolution condemning bigotry and hate after backlash from a number of factions across the Democratic Party forced changes to a bill that originally focused on anti-Semitism and remarks about Israel by a Muslim American congresswoman.

The resolution passed in the lower chamber of Congress on Thursday overwhelmingly, 407 to 23, with all Democrats voting in favor, including Representative Ilhan Omar herself, whose legitimate criticism of Israel has been deemed anti-Semitic by some colleagues and exposed deep fault lines among Democrats.

House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the resolution, which she called the "strongest possible opposition" to anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and white supremacist bigotry.

Omar, a newly elected Democrat Congresswoman from Minnesota, has sparked a firestorm on Capitol Hill over repeated criticisms of Israel and the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington that exerts great influence in US politics.

Omar joined the two other Muslims in Congress, Rashida Tlaib and Andre Carson, in praising the measure's passage.

"It's the first time we have voted on a resolution condemning Anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation's history," they said, noting the worrying rise of extremism in America.

The resolution was initially pushed by Zionist organizations and some Jewish members of Congress to rebuke Omar for condemning the Israel lobby, but there was a heated backlash from fellow Democrats who said she was being unfairly singled out by the leadership.

Some Democratic senators in the upper chamber of Congress, including three 2020 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, expressed frustration that Omar faced an implicit rebuke, while racist statements by President Donald Trump and other Republicans go largely unchallenged.

"We must not... equate anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of the right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel," said Sanders, who is Jewish.

“What I fear is going on in the House now is an effort to target Congresswoman Omar as a way of stifling that debate. That’s wrong,” added Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Democratic Party.

The Democrats' growing diversity -- in ethnicity, religion, gender, age and ideology -- has created new challenges for party leaders, said Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.


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