Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Sunday that she hopes Israel will break from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tuesday’s election.
Omar said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that she hopes the people of Israel will “recognize that his existence, his policies, his rhetoric really is contradictory” after Netanyahu last week pledged to annex parts of the West Bank if he’s reelected, a move that could prove fatal to a potential two-state solution.
“For many of us in Congress, it has been a long-standing support for a two-state solution, and this annexation now is going to make sure that that peace process does not happen and we will not get to a two-state solution,” she continued.{mosads}
Omar has been a longtime critic of Netanyahu’s government and a supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Last month, the Israeli government barred Omar and her fellow Muslim lawmaker Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) from entering the country over their BDS support.
“What is really important is for people to understand that you have to give people the opportunity to seek the kind of justice they want in a peaceful way,” Omar said Sunday, responding to that ban.
“I think the opportunity to boycott, divest, sanction is the kind of the pressure that leads to that peaceful process.”
Netanyahu has struggled to pull ahead of rival Benny Gantz in a repeat of an election held earlier this year that left the prime minister unable to form a governing coalition.