Saturday, 16 February 2019

Who is Ilhan Omar?

Toby Luckhurst BBC twitter  Ilhan Omar: Who is Minnesota's Somalia-born congresswoman?

The BBC’s Toby Luckhurst; (me neither) Google gives the impression he’s ‘Twitter’s Toby Luckhurst' rather than the Beeb’s since his work seems to be mainly in the form of Tweets.

Anyway, the BBC has given him a platform to express his admiration for Ilhan Omar, Minnesota’s newly elected Somali-American, hijab-wearing, antisemitic Democratic congresswoman.

I was alerted to this puff piece by D.B., who Tweeted a question to the writer on behalf of many of us.
Why have you cited a Guardian article supporting Omar? You don't link to any journalists criticial of her. Interesting use of loaded language on her behalf too - she gave "a powerful rebuke", she "fired back". & you finish by giving her the last word - playing the Muslim card.
Toby Luckhurst’s article shows that the fabric in the BBC’s cloak of impartiality is getting increasingly threadbare.
Ilhan Omar: Who is Minnesota's Somalia-born congresswoman?
Luckhurst has pitched the article in the style of an educational resource - Perhaps the BBC sees it as one of those “all you need to know” pieces that they favour. (Educating, informing and entertaining the masses.)

It’s divided into three sections, with, at  number one: “Who is Ilhan Omar?” - “What do her fans think?” at number two, and last but not least, at number three “What do critics say?”.

This (concluding) section is lengthy but please don't be fooled. It doesn’t signify impartiality.  Not at all; because a large proportion of it covers her apologies and excuses for her inadvertent (“innocent face”) transgressions and "mistakes". The author might believe that a section featuring criticism of Omar is enough to provide the requisite balance, but as DB points out, the language he uses throughout belies this.

The first two sections are virtually elegiac. 'Diversity!' and 'Racial disadvantage triumphs over racist white privilege’ is the none too subtle message.
Never mind the antisemitism and chronic “Israelophobia.” Her victory over the “181-year ban on headwear in the House of Representatives, allowing her to wear a hijab for her oath of office, and holds a place on the House Foreign Affairs Committee” is apparently regarded as progress for some reason.

I don’t think Luckhurst will have read 'I was forced to wear a hijab. It wasn’t liberating Why World Hijab Day is an insult to girls like me' by Soutiam Goodarzi, (Spectator(£)  otherwise he might not have promoted this as an unequivocal and progressive triumph. 

And Omar’s support for BDS is accepted uncritically, even though many of us see it as an abomination; both deeply antisemitic and an inherently hypocritical position for any users of Israeli-invented and manufactured medical and technological resources.

Her overt antisemitism is brushed aside by linguistic sleight of hand: 
“She was embroiled in controversy over tweets which some have claimed are anti-Semitic.”
That’s straight out of the BBC’s weaselly  “Israel says” formula. 
Some have claimed......
is antisemitic? Just a claim, then.

As DB has also pointed out, the only article that has been extensively quoted by Luckhurst is an opinion piece in the Guardian by a  critic of Israel, and for those extra Brownie points, a notorious “asaJew” 

Just from the last few weeks, the pro-Israel press provides a metaphorical bottomless pit of critical articles from which the author could have dipped into just to provide a modicum of balance to this would-be backgrounder.

Times of Israel:  Jewish money behind US support Israel.

This is but a mere handful of alarming information about Ilhan Omar's conduct, all picked up via Elder of Ziyon. But there's much more of the same out there, for those of a curious disposition.  


  1. Like you, Sue, I've seen lots of damning stuff about Ilhan Omar.

    And now here comes Whitewash Toby from the BBC doing what the BBC 'does best'.

    Not just a Democrat, but a hijab-wearing, Israel-hating Muslim Democrat.


    Also, that "fired back" language suggests Toby Luckhurst has been reading CNN, whose headline a day or so ago was: "Rep. Omar fires back after Trump calls for her resignation: 'You have trafficked in hate your whole life'".

    BBC churnalism in action?

  2. Toby appears to have been created from the primordial Generation Ending in 'Y' that has, in short in short order, also given us Joey

    Young, something to do with the BBC (apparently) and rammed full of views that are their own on twitter.

    And, as noted, coming but from one direction. With a sledgehammer. Followed by a bear.

    They adore fellow young things who do not adore the things they also do not adore.

    Which might explain if not excuse them missing the bubble of adulation is not just small, and shrinking, especially in the vicinity of the Divine Ms. O's own party.

    Maybe the BBC is prepping him to head West, young man. Katty, Anthony, Nick, and especially Jon... look out.

  3. And we can get the measure of Mr Lockhurst from his tweets:

    He seems to think that a man being attacked in public and sustaining serious head injuries as a result of his head hitting the ground during the attack is morally different from a man being attacked in public and sustaining serious head injuries as a result of being kicked while on the ground. At least he seems to think so if the man in question is a member of Germany's AfD party. In that case you can use the different circumstances to cast doubt on the account of what happened, even if the injury was still directly cause by the actions of the Far Left attackers.

  4. Young Toby , trying to advance his career in the cash cow BEEB, realises quickly the sort of stuff he has to spew.