MSNBC guest and journalist Mehdi Hasan defended Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) over her anti-Semitic tweets and blamed Republicans for the deadly attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue attack in October during an appearance on "All In" Tuesday.
"The idea that the Republican Party are gonna give lectures on anti-Semitism is like taking lectures on climate change from the Republican Party. These are the guys who are trafficking in globalist, Soros, all of this language that helped inspire the guy who walked into a synagogue in October and murdered 11 Jewish worshipers. That wasn't a guy who was inspired by Ilhan Omar. That was a guy who believed in the same kind of conspiracy theories that Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress put out day in, day out," Hasan said.
"Anti-Semitism is on the rise, and we need to understand why it's on the rise. It's a far-right, ethno-nationalist problem. It's not a problem from people who are criticizing Israel," Hasan added.
House Democratic leaders will introduce a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on Wednesday in the wake of more anti-Semitic remarks by Omar. At an event in Washington, D.C. last week, Omar said she wanted "to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country."
Rep. Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, condemned Omar, calling it "unacceptable and deeply offensive to call into question the loyalty of fellow Americana citizens because of their political views, including support for the U.S.-Israel relationship. We all take the same oath. Worse, Representative Omar's comments leveled that charge by invoking a vile anti-Semitic slur."
Omar did not back down from her comments, however, and responded directly to criticism from a fellow Democratic congresswoman in a Twitter thread on Sunday.
Earlier this month, Omar apologized for anti-Semitic tweets, many of which were quietly deleted last week. In one instance, she quote-tweeted liberal journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was criticizing House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) for threatening punishment against Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). In response to Greenwald's tweet, she wrote, "It's all about the Benjamins baby." She followed up by accusing AIPAC of paying politicians to be pro-Israel.
Omar has also apologized for a past tweet in which she accused Israel of hypnotizing the world and performing evil acts.