The communist daughter of Somali-first U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) landed in jail yesterday after joining a pro-Palestinian tent-city “protest” at Columbia University.
Later released, Isra Hirsi was among 108 leftists whom New York City police collared and carted off in a corrections bus.
But the story about the protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza quickly faded as top Democratic pro-Palestinian politicians rushed to Hirsi’s defense, despite her part in an illegal “protest” that disrupted the campus.
The Protest, the Arrest
“Demonstrators had set up a makeshift tent city Wednesday on the university’s Morningside Campus, erecting dozens of tents in a scene reminiscent of the 2011 takeover of Zuccotti Park by Occupy Wall Street,” the New York Post reported:
Only this time the protesters weren’t given two months to luxuriate. Shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday, Columbia University president Minouche Shafik brought the hammer down swiftly and decisively, calling in the NYPD to crack down on the encampment.
Police spokesman Jaclyn Keane said that, along with 107 others, Hirsi would receive a summons for trespassing. They also received citations for “obstruction of governmental administration,” the Post reported.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. yesterday, Hirsi revealed on X that Barnard College had suspended her:
i’m an organizer with CU Apartheid Divest @ColumbiaSJP, in my 3 years at @BarnardCollege i have never been reprimanded or received any disciplinary warnings
i just received notice that i am 1 of 3 students suspended for standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide.
those of us in Gaza Solidarity Encampment will not be intimidated. we will stand resolute until our demands are met.
our demands include divestment from companies complicit in genocide, transparency of @Columbia’s investments and FULL amnesty for all students facing repression
Hirsi’s X profile says she’s an “angry black girl,” punctuated with the communist hammer and sickle.
Immediately after the arrest, Omar’s anti-American, Democratic allies on Capitol Hill mounted a defense.
“What is going on here @BarnardCollege @Columbia?” New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wrote on X:
How does a student with no disciplinary record suddenly get to a suspension less than 24 hours after a nonviolent protest?
What merits asymmetric crackdowns on Palestinian human rights protests?
The answer is “trespassing.”
Palestinian Rashida Tlaib of Michigan burbled about “constitutional rights.”
“From UM to Vanderbilt to USC to Columbia, students across our country are being retaliated against for using their constitutional rights to protest genocide,” she complained. “It’s appalling.”
Representative Jamaal Bowman said Columbia had exacted revenge for remarks by Omar during a hearing on campus “antisemitism.”
One of the people who testified was Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who called in the riot cops to disperse the trespassing protesters.
“The day after @IlhanMN questioned Columbia leadership’s commitment to free academic expression, the school suspended her daughter?” Bowman wrote. “It’s clear what is happening here. Our educational institutions should not be in the business of political reprisals.”
However, NYC Mayor Eric Adams, as hard-bitten a leftist as Omar and her comrades, didn’t see it that way, and tacitly said the trespassers got what they deserved, the Post reported.
“Students have a right to free speech. They do not have a right to violate university policies and disrupt learning on campus,” he said.
Barnard College was clear as well. The students were not suspended for protesting. They were suspended because they refused to leave the encampment despite repeated warnings. “A number of Barnard Senior Staff also went to the lawn to ask Barnard students participating in the encampment to leave and to advise Barnard students that they would be subject to sanctions at Barnard if they did not leave the encampment,” the school said.
Those sanctions were suspensions if the students didn’t evacuate Columbia:
This morning, April 18, we started to place identified Barnard students remaining in the encampment on interim suspension, and we will continue to do so.
Omar’s Record
Hirsi comes by her radicalism honestly — straight from her mother. Hirsi began protesting at 6 years old, as the Post reported, citing Vice. In 2015, when she was 12, she “joined her family at a Black Lives Matter protest that forced Mall of America to shut down and required over 200 police officers, including 50 riot cops, to restore order.”
Omar was recently exposed as a Somalian agent of influence in Congress.
In January, the Somali refugee told a gathering of her countrymen that she was in Congress to protect Somali interests “from inside.”
After those remarks went viral, more surfaced. In late 2022, she said that she works for the president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and that she doesn’t consider herself an American despite being naturalized:
The president and I have a special relationship. I call him uncle and he calls me his girl. Welcome to your home. Our home is your home. Welcome to Minneapolis. We are very happy that Hassan is our president. Somalia is our home. It is home to all the people gathered here. We do not feel that it is far from us. Somalia is our heart. It is in our hearts. We always think about Somalia.
Kicked off the Foreign Affairs Committee as a national security risk because of her “antisemitism,” Omar had earlier married her brother to commit immigration and student loan fraud.
Another Third World custom she brought to Congress is using campaign cash to line her own pockets.
Omar paid the consultancy of husband Tim Mynett a small fortune for campaign help. The self-dealing began during the pair’s adulterous affair, which wrecked Mynett’s marriage.
H/T: Legal Insurrection
