Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ilhan Omar Targeted By Bomb Threat At Muslim-American Civil Rights Banquet

Representative Ilhan Omar was targeted by a bomb threat at event in Los Angeles, where she was speaking on Muslim-American civil rights, celebrity news site The Blast reported.

The Minnesota congresswoman was scheduled to be the featured speaker at a banquet for the Council of American-Islamic Relations on March 23. Days earlier, on March 19, a woman called the Hilton Hotel, where the event was held, from a blocked number, threatening to bomb the hotel for allowing Omar in, according to court records obtained by The Blast.

A Los Angeles Police Department officer was called onto the scene and listened to the voicemail, according to the police report. It said: “What would you do if I told you your hotel was going to be bombed. That is exactly what’s going to happen if you allow the likes of Ilhan Omar into your hotel. She is a danger to American society and your hotel. You are not to allow her foot into there if you value your own safety. Do not allow her in there. Cancel the event.”

Omar still spoke at the event. LAPD investigators plan to extract the cellphone information from the call to find the suspect.

Dozens of protestors arrived at the hotel on the day of the banquet, The Blast reported. Omar has been criticized for various statements that have been called anti-Semitic. In February, she said she believes that AIPAC bribes politicians to be pro-Israel. A few weeks later, she made a comment that appeared to Jews of possessing dual loyalties. It all came about a month after a 2012 tweet resurfaced, in which she wrote “Israel has hypnotized the world” during the war with Gaza. She has since apologized for her remarks.

“Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes,” she wrote in a statement regarding the AIPAC controversy.

Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.