Slow to condemn Colorado attack, Reps. Omar and Tlaib branded ‘Muslim terrorists’ by fellow lawmaker
The morning after an attack on a group of people in Colorado demonstrating in support of freeing the hostages held in Gaza, Democrat Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both of them Muslims, had yet to issue statements condemning the violence.
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., who is Jewish, was critical of the silence from the two Muslim congresswomen following the attack Sunday that left eight people injured in Boulder, Colorado.
“They’re Muslim terrorists,” he said when asked what he made of their lack of a public statement as of Monday morning.
“I put it to people this way,” Fine continued, “the people who are sitting, running Hamas in Qatar, they’re not blowing anything up, but they support terrorism. If you support Muslim terrorism, you’re a Muslim terrorist, and I believe that they both do. You can see it in the silence. I think it is a disgrace that they are Americans, let alone in Congress. And I believe that the way you fight for good is to call out evil.”
Tlaib did respond to the attack on Monday afternoon after The Daily Signal’s conversation with Fine.
“The violent attack in Boulder is horrific,” Tlaib wrote on X. “My heart goes out to all of the victims and their families. Violence has no place in our communities.”
Twenty-four hours after the attack, Omar had yet to issue a statement on the incident. Neither Tlaib or Omar answered The Daily Signal’s request for comment in response to Fine’s claim that the congresswoman effectively are “Muslim terrorists.”
Mohamed Soliman, the lead suspect in the attack, used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary device as he shouted, “Free Palestine,” and attacked the group of people marching in support of freeing the Israeli hostages seized in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Soliman, an Egyptian national in the country illegally, is now in custody and has been charged with a federal hate crime.
Fine has spent years speaking out in support of the Jewish community and says he will continue to do so as a new member of Congress. Before being elected to Congress on April 1 in a special election, Fine served in the Florida Legislature, where he spearheaded the passage of legislation to combat antisemitism at universities in the state.
Fine has now introduced similar legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that is aimed at stopping antisemitic harassment on college campuses.
The antisemitism that has arisen in America “comes directly from our universities,” Fine said.
There is a lot of fear among the Jewish community in America following Sunday’s attack and the fatal shootings in Washington, D.C., on May 21 that left two Israeli Embassy staff members dead. In both instances, Fine says the suspects went “hunting” for Jewish people to harm.
“I mean, people are afraid because there’s not enough security to solve for this problem. And what we’ve seen is, we’ve seen it tolerated,” he said.
Today, Fine says, “we have reached a world where … the Left has told us, ‘globalize the intifada,’ [and] their soldiers are listening.” Still, the congressman says, he has hope because the policy steps taken in Florida have been effective.
“When you show that you’re not afraid, when you call evil for what it is, when you don’t back down, they back off,” he said.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]