On Wednesday night, what should have been an evening of heritage and community turned into an unspeakable tragedy.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, young staffers at the Israeli Embassy, were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum. The couple, soon to be engaged, had been attending a Jewish conference hosted by the American Jewish Committee—an event meant to celebrate identity and resilience. Instead, it became a crime scene.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar did not mince words. Calling the event a “horrific terrorist attack,” he linked the incident to what he described as a dangerous rise in antisemitic incitement globally since the October 7th massacre. “I have been worried… that something like this would happen. And it did,” he said. The grief is raw, the implications profound.
JUST IN: Ilhan Omar REFUSES to condemn the assassination of Israeli diplomats in DC last night
Omar is an ISLAMIC TERRORlST who needs to be deported back to Somalia.
NOT IN CONGRESS. pic.twitter.com/sstQadHDQg
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 22, 2025
As the political world reeled, one figure stood conspicuously at the center of a storm: Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Confronted outside the Capitol and asked to respond to the attack, she declined comment, saying only, “I’m going to go for now.” The brief, evasive statement sparked immediate backlash.
Later, Omar did issue a statement on X, condemning the violence and offering prayers to the victims’ families. But for critics, including White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the damage was done. Leavitt didn’t hold back. “It’s despicable… We’ve seen a rise in antisemitic, pro-Hamas protests… and the Democratic Party has turned a blind eye,” she said in Thursday’s press briefing. The implication: Omar’s silence, however brief, was symbolic of a wider problem.
.@MaryMargOlohan: “Do you or President Trump have a message to politicians like Ilhan Omar, who this morning explicitly avoided condemning this act of terror?”@PressSec: “It’s despicable…the President has made it very clear that such hatred will have no place in our country.” pic.twitter.com/g9BXuhCqLh
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) May 22, 2025
This isn’t Omar’s first encounter with controversy over terror-related commentary. In 2021, she faced censure from top Democrats—including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—after equating U.S. and Israeli actions with those of terror groups like Hamas and the Taliban. Pelosi rebuked her, warning against “false equivalencies” that inflame prejudice rather than promote peace.
Then there was her infamous 2019 CAIR speech, in which Omar described 9/11 as a moment when “some people did something”—a phrase that ignited national outrage and provoked a visceral response from 9/11 victims’ families.
