Ilhan Omar schooled on free speech by Iraqi beauty queen

Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota, traded tweeted barbs with Iraq’s former beauty queen, Sarah Idan — a woman who was forced to flee her country because of strict Islamic beliefs that condemned her wearing of a bikini and her photograph with an Israeli pageant contestant. And after the briefest of Twitter exchanges, the score was Omar, 0; beauty queen, 1.

But it was the in-between that matters most.

That’s the part where the congresswoman from Minnesota quietly, subtly, even sneakily, tried to subvert America’s system of freedom of speech.

“Ilhan Omar does not represent me as a Muslim,” Idan said on an episode of “The Sara Carter Show” reported by Breitbart. “You know, like in Arab countries, we call her the Muslim Brotherhood. They are extremist Muslims, Sunni Muslims, who are now working together with Iran against all the Arab countries. They’re working now with Hezbollah, with Turkey .. they are extremist Muslims, they’re jihadis and they have this ideology that they want to control the world.”

Idan would know.

Idan was raised in Iraq at a time when Saddam Hussein was in power. During her run for Miss Universe, she posted a photograph of herself alongside Miss Israel, with a caption that read, “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel” — and for that, was forced to flee her country.

And now, Idan warned, Omar’s quietly pressing the same type of radical Islamic way of thinking into America’s political system.

“It’s an ideology of trying to push Islam to make it the ruling system of the country,” Idan said, on i24 news.

Omar, after seeing a link of Idan’s interview with Sara Carter on Twitter, shot back, The Jerusalem Post reported: “Hey, I might be wrong but I don’t think you are a #MN05 resident and like that makes [m] not your representative.”

As if that matters.

As if only District 5 citizens have a right to speak about the dangers of radical Islam.

Let the schooling begin.

“Seriously @IlhanMN,” Idan tweeted back. “I said as a MUSLIM! I don’t stand for your anti-American, antisemitic, Muslim Brotherhood agenda, using this democracy to further YOUR & YOUR FRIENDS Islamic socialism goals of dividing & weakening our country.”

And this: “When you @IlhanMN come to my State, My City, My zip code right here in CA & accept an award from CAIR, a Muslim brotherhood affiliated organization IT IS my business! First was the Middle East, then Europe & now the USA. I fled from the same ideology you’re trying to export here.”

Soon enough, the Muslim apologists will begin the trashing of Idan — their friends in the media will call her out as discriminatory and racist and hateful. Maybe even tie her comments back to President Donald Trump somehow.

But let the haters hate. In America, the freedom of speech rings clear.

As Idan not-to-subtly reminded: Freedom to express one’s views is not confined to the district in which one lives.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

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