Rep. Max Rose said Thursday he decided to tell a group of Jewish people in his district in Staten Island that he's sorry for the words of fellow Rep Ilhan Omar because he believes in changing American politics.
"Everybody is blaming each other," the New York Democrat told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "She caused pain in the Jewish community. She apologized, but we are working as hard as we can to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Muslims also are feeling an incredible amount of pain, said Rose, noting that Staten Island and Brooklyn have one of the largest Muslim communities in the country.
However, he said he does not believe Omar to be anti-Semitic, but he thought her tweets were, and he apologized "because they came out of Congress. This shouldn't be news that someone did this. This should be run of the mill stuff."
He also noted that on the same day or the day before Omar made her comments about Jews and the government on Twitter, there was a "very, very public threat made against her life."
"There is an incredible rise of Islamophobia in this country," said Rose, while commenting on an anti-hate resolution that was passed after Omar's tweets. Initially, the resolution was going to be against anti-Semitic statements but was widened to encompass other religions and walks of life.
"What I saw was a resolution that pronounced objection and opposition to acts of hate, as they rise across the county, particularly anti-Semitism and Islamophobia," said Rose.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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