– Hate breeds hate. If you hate America, Americans will hate you in return.
When the news first broke that federal agents had raided the home of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, ordinary Americans reacted strongly. This was evident both on social media and in the comments sections. The issue is engaging the public on an unprecedented level.
On Fox News, the first news report about the raid had nearly 29,000 comments. That is completely unheard of. I, for one, have certainly never seen so many comments on a single story, not even on Fox.
One comment was brief but to the point. It described both the situation and why the news story received so much attention – and support from a large majority:
If you hate America, Americans will hate you back. Hate invites hate.
If you hate America, Americans will hate you in return. Hate breeds hate.
Americans are generally very open to immigration. Few other countries have succeeded so well in integrating people from foreign cultures over several centuries. But, like most Norwegians, they prefer those who ask what they can do for the country, not what the country can do for them.
And even more importantly: they do not like new compatriots who constantly criticise the country, wish to change it in their own image and, at the same time, come across as ungrateful, arrogant and condescending.
Most of us judge people by how they behave, not by where they come from. But when someone is perceived as hostile towards the country they have come to, people react strongly.
Ilhan Omar is one of them. And she has been so ever since she first appeared on the public stage, in the highest position an immigrant can attain in the US. To put it mildly, she is a highly unsympathetic person.
Had her fellow Somali, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, been a member of Congress, she would have been both loved and respected by most people.
Number one target of hatred, according to Mjelde
And then there’s the Norwegian media. Unsurprisingly, Ilhan Omar is portrayed as a victim of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric from the MAGA mob. Norway is, in fact, much like the US in this respect. The left is keen to put immigrants, particularly those from MENA countries, on a pedestal.
If they can also recount how poorly they have been received and how ‘racist’ the people are, that’s an added bonus. We have a few Ilhan Omars in Norway too. They’re not hard to spot, but there’s no need to name names.
When federal agents turn up and raid the home of a sitting US congresswoman, it’s rarely just a routine matter. Nevertheless, it is not Ilhan Omar who is the problem in Norwegian media coverage; it is MAGA.
US expert Hilmar Mjelde says in an interview with TV 2: Omar is MAGA’s number one target of hatred. The conflict between her and the Trump camp dates back to the first Trump administration, and the raid may ‘of course be politically motivated’.
TV 2 echoes Reuters whilst also describing an “outburst of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric” from Trump. Omar herself has described the president’s focus on her as “an unhealthy and creepy obsession”.
TV 2 also quotes strong statements from Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives. They say that Donald Trump and far-right extremists have for several years been attacking Congresswoman Omar with degrading, personal attacks and baseless accusations.
Now, less than 30 days before the mid-term elections, his ‘violent deportation machine’ has struck at the home of an elected Member of Congress and her family.
– In a country where democracy is eroding
Mjelde places the incident within the broader context of a US where democracy is ‘eroding’. In such regimes, he says, it is a well-known tactic to find ‘some sort of dirt’ on members of the opposition.
He draws a parallel with Trump’s attempts to have Lisa Cook and Jay Powell removed from the Federal Reserve. Rumours and allegations of dirt about Ilhan Omar have been circulating for years, but nothing has brought her down, he says.
Mjelde gives the impression that this is something new under Trump. The so-called US expert has clearly failed to realise that the hunt for compromising information about political opponents has existed since the US was founded.
There are many in US politics who want to see her caught out for something, says Mjelde. And he is actually right about that. But it is not because she is a Muslim and a Somali.
Ilhan Omar and Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ilhan Omar and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are both Somali-born women who fled civil war and chaos and built a life for themselves in the West.
Nevertheless, they have received a completely different reception in the US. One is loved and respected, whilst the other is condemned and despised by millions.
Hirsi Ali left Islam, became a fierce critic of Islamism, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, and has defended the core of Western liberal values such as individual rights, freedom of expression and secular law. She has said that the American system provides the tools to rectify injustice without having to ‘dismantle’ it.
When Omar said in 2020 that work must begin on tearing down ‘the entire system of oppression wherever we find it’ in the economy and politics, Hirsi Ali reacted. ‘She sits in Congress – the US Congress – and she says: “Why not tear the whole thing down?” It makes you wonder,” she told Dana Perino on The Daily Briefing,
Why turn the US into Mogadishu?
“Why flee from Mogadishu, why flee from anarchy, why flee from oppression – and then come to the US and do your best to turn Minnesota and the US into Mogadishu? That is one of the questions I would very much like to ask her,’ said Hirsi Ali at the time.
Omar came to the US as a child, having fled war and chaos in Somalia. She was welcomed with open arms, received an education, opportunities and, ultimately, a seat in Congress – the highest position an immigrant can attain.
Yet she has spent much of her political career criticising the country that took her in, trivialising 9/11, attacking US foreign policy and describing the American system as oppressive and something that must be torn down. And she adheres to a dogma that is incompatible with American values.
Omar denies that she hates the US, and claims that the criticism levelled at her is racist and Islamophobic. The result is that Omar is deeply polarising, whilst Hirsi Ali is treated with respect – precisely because she defends the liberal values that Omar criticises. And because she loves America and does not wish to turn it into a new Mogadishu.
If Omar had held Hirsi Ali’s views, she would not have been ‘the number one target of hatred’ for MAGA. Hate invites hate. It is not always any more complicated than that.
So much for seeking the truth
Mjelde admits that the Somali community in Minnesota has been in the spotlight because of a major social security fraud scandal. He adds: ‘That makes it easier for Trump to associate her with sleaze and fraud, even though there is no connection.’
Do we really need yet another reminder of the furore surrounding the Norwegian Editors’ Association and the accusations from our colleagues in the media that Document is not committed to seeking the truth?
For here, Mjelde and TV 2 are presenting a narrative that is difficult to reconcile with the truth. Firstly, Document has already published in-depth coverage of the links between Ilhan Omar and individuals involved in the widespread social security fraud in Minnesota.
This includes among other things her political links to individuals who were later convicted, and the bill she sponsored that relaxed the controls on the food programme affected by the fraud.
Secondly, Omar herself is under federal investigation for possible immigration fraud linked to her family’s immigration papers, in addition to a separate investigation into her financial records, which TV 2 has not reported on.
The investigation concerns – amongst other things – the fact that Omar declared assets of up to 30 million dollars in financial disclosures submitted to the House of Representatives, before later correcting the figure to between 18,000 and 95,000 dollars.
In any case, perhaps we should listen to the millions of Americans who are questioning Ilhan Omar, rather than blindly trusting TV 2, Hilmar Mjelde and the rest of the media.
