What a spectacle in the decision of the House of Representatives to remove Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from its Foreign Affairs Committee. Even the most pro-Israel members on the Minnesota Democrat’s side of the aisle rushed to defend their colleague, who says support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins.”  The tally today was 218 to 211 on a party-line vote to eject the congresswoman from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

There are plenty of reasons to justify the Republicans’ move to keep Representative Omar away from a congressional body overseeing America’s foreign policy. As in today’s vote, the Congresswoman has long claimed victimhood whenever she was exposed for siding with America’s detractors and against our allies. In 2021 a lobbying group with ties to Tehran, the National Iranian American Council, bestowed on Ms. Omar its “courage award.”

Earlier the congresswoman sided with Nicolas Maduro, suggesting  Venezuelans opposing him are American stooges. “We cannot hand pick leaders for other countries on behalf of multinational corporate interests,” she tweeted. Before the “Benjamins,” Ms. Omar repeatedly smeared Washington backers of the Jewish state. The congresswoman apologized for some incendiary remarks, saying she was unaware of their antisemitic nature. 

No one believes her. The record, our Eli Lake wrote in 2019, shows that “where most members of Congress see a longstanding alliance, Omar sees a conspiracy.” Even after the business about the “Benjamins,” the congresswoman insisted that only nefarious actors could support Israel. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that can say it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” she said. 

Ah, for the days when Democrats knew how to stand up against that kind of  accusation. After hearing Ms. Omar’s slander, the chairman, at the time, of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, a Democrat of New York, said on the floor, “I ask that she retract them, apologize, and commit to making her case on policy issues without resorting to attacks that have no place” in the committee.

A defiant Ms. Omar refused to apologize, retract, or commit. What a contrast between Mr. Engel’s stance in 2019 and his party’s fiery speeches today against removing Ms. Omar from the committee. “I stand before you as a proud Jew and a proud friend and colleague of Ilhan Omar,” Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said in defending Ms. Omar. “I don’t need any of you to defend me against antisemitism.”

“I will continue to speak up because representation matters,” vowed Ms. Omar. “I will continue to speak up for little kids who wonder who’s speaking up for them. I am here to stay, and I am here to be a voice against harms around the world.” She aspires to become an avatar of the fight against racism, Islamophobia, and misogyny.  AOC, slamming her notebook against the lectern, called Ms. Omar’s ouster a “targeting women of color.”  

To those who say the House’s decision to remove Ms. Omar from Foreign Relations oversight puts Republicans on the spot, we say this: We’d rather be on the spot the GOP is in than the spot the Democrats are in. The Democrats will be the ones to deal with Ms. Omar as the Minnesotan maneuvers, at the expense of Israel, to emerge from the party’s backbench and into a leadership position in the party that once boasted of Harry Truman.