Ilhan Omar

Omar does not limit herself to criticizing Israeli policy. She has repeatedly described Israel as an apartheid state and accused it of genocide and ethnic cleansing. She has referred to Israel's conduct in Gaza as genocide and ethnic cleansing and to its rule in the West Bank as apartheid, and in 2025 she called for a total arms embargo. In April 2024 she voted against the Israel Security Supplemental, calling it a blank check to the Israeli military. In November 2025 she was a cosponsor of Representative Tlaib's resolution, H.Res. 876, to have Congress formally recognize Israel's Gaza campaign as genocide.

In September 2021 she was one of only nine members to oppose one billion dollars for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, joining the other Squad members in voting no. Unlike some progressives who distinguish between defensive and offensive systems, Omar has said she opposes both, arguing that United States munitions are being used to perpetuate genocide in Gaza. In November 2023 she introduced a resolution to block a proposed sale of 320 million dollars in bomb kits to Israel, described at the time as the first legislation seeking to directly block military support to Israel after October 7. She has repeatedly voted against military aid packages for Israel and has been a leading congressional voice for a total arms embargo. On September 3, 2026 she voted against H.R. 4795, the bipartisan bill denying certain federal higher education funds to institutions that engage in a commercial boycott of Israel, which supporters framed as a measure against antisemitism in the form of BDS.

In November 2024 Omar was one of only three Democrats to vote against H.Res. 1449, which endorsed the State Department global guidelines and referenced the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Omar said the resolution did nothing to combat antisemitism and argued that the IHRA definition dangerously conflates legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. She has consistently opposed measures she regards as using antisemitism to restrict criticism of Israel.

Omar's record on this issue predates and outpaces that of her colleagues. In 2012 she wrote that Israel had hypnotized the world and asked God to awaken people to its evil doings, for which she later apologized. In February 2019 she suggested that support for Israel in American politics was bought, tweeting that it was all about “the Benjamins” and naming AIPAC, which drew condemnation from Democratic and Republican leaders alike; she issued what she called an unequivocal apology. Weeks later she said advocates for Israel were pushing for allegiance to a foreign country, invoking the dual loyalty trope. In June 2021 she placed the United States and Israel in the same sentence as Hamas and the Taliban, writing that all had committed unthinkable atrocities, prompting a dozen Jewish House Democrats to publicly rebuke her; she later said she had not intended a moral equivalence.