The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) backed Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) tweets alleging the purchase of American foreign policy by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), despite Democrat leaders’ descriptions of Omar’s comments as antisemitic.

According to CAIR, descriptions of Omar’s tweets — in which she cast AIPAC as a purchaser of American foreign policy against the national interest on behalf of Israel — as antisemitic amount to disingenuous attempts to silence criticism of Israel.

CAIR stated on Monday:

Anti-Semitism is real. It should not be used disingenuously as a tool to silence legitimate criticism of a foreign nation’s discriminatory policies. CAIR applauds Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for their courage in speaking the truth about Israel’s racial, religious and ethnic segregation. Agenda-driven groups — like AIPAC — have for decades enabled that segregation and the resulting denial of human rights for Christian and Muslim Palestinians.

On Sunday, Omar cast the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as the purchaser of U.S. foreign policy.

In 2012, Omar claimed, “Israel has hypnotized the world.”

David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grand wizard, joined Omar’s narrative via Twitter on Monday.

Duke tweeted: “Every Zio and every Goy knows that Zionist $ rules American politics. 9 ot10 top Demo funders, biggest corp. cont. Goldman Sachs, Repub giant $ bags – S. Adelson. It’s a disgrace that not one white christian man in Congress has the balls to stand up to them.!”

In 2007-8, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. That case, in turn, led the FBI to discontinue its work with the organization. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that the government “produced ample evidence to establish” the ties of CAIR with Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization. The United Arab Emirates labeled CAIR a terrorist organization in 2014 (a decision that the Obama administration opposed).

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