(February 20, 2023 / JNS) Accusations of Islamophobia came almost immediately after the U.S. House of Representatives voted earlier this month to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from its Foreign Affairs Committee. The vote followed repeated promises from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to remove the congresswoman due to her history of antisemitic and anti-Israel remarks.

Omar took to CNN’s State of the Union show, saying “it is politically motivated, and in some cases, motivated by the fact that many of these members don’t believe a Muslim refugee, an African, should even be in Congress, let alone have the opportunity to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee.”

If the censure of Omar is Islamophobic, that would be news to several Muslim reform groups that work to combat radical Islamism and praised McCarthy’s decision to remove Omar from the committee.

Asra Q. Nomani, co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement and a former professor at Georgetown University, told JNS that Omar is “a lieutenant in a dangerous network of leftists and anti-Israel Muslims that I call the ‘Woke Army.’ ”

That army weaponizes “the media, political institutions, the Democratic Party, the law and shame to silence critics and do everything in their power to realize the destruction of Israel,” said the Northern Virginia-based scholar. 

“Make no mistake about it, the Woke Army is rooted in a deep, ideological antisemitism, and so is Ilhan Omar’s campaign against Israel. They used character assassination to smear anyone who gets in their way with the allegation of Islamophobe.”