Dalia al-Aqidi has a long record of countering and speaking out against the views and positions held by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—a member of the progressive House of Representatives group informally called “The Squad”—particularly on matters involving Israel and the Palestinians.
Ms. al-Aqidi, like Ms. Omar, is a refugee, a Muslim, and resident of Minnesota.
She is the only declared candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination to contest Ms. Omar’s reelection in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.
And now, following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and with war between Israel and Hamas raging and global tensions rising, the words of Ms. al-Aqidi, and their opposition to those of Ms. Omar, are receiving increased attention.
Even as Ms. Omar, a controversial and harsh critic of Israel, condemned the Hamas attack, she also called for a ceasefire, which would prevent Israel from continuing its efforts to nullify and eliminate not only Hamas but also other terrorist organizations that declare themselves enemies of Israel.
On the same day of the Oct. 17 explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, in which, according to the Hamas-backed Gaza health ministry, at least 500 people were killed, Ms. Omar joined fellow squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) in blaming Israel for the attack. However, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said the explosion was caused by an errant air strike fired by the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad, and the White House stated that Israel was not responsible.
Ms. al-Aqidi issued a statement on Oct. 18 in which she took issue with Ms. Omar calling out Israel as the culprit.
“I condemn Ilhan Omar’s decision to parrot the terrorist talking points of Hamas that put American lives in danger and feed the flames of extremism and intolerance in our district and across the globe,” said Ms. al-Aqidi in the statement. “I call on her to apologize to the Jewish community in Minnesota, who she so callously offends and puts at risk.”
Ms. Omar put out her own statement on Oct. 18 in which she modified and walked back her accusation against Israel, citing the claims of the IDF and the White House on the bombing.
Two days later, at a press conference on Capitol Hill, Ms. Omar criticized the Biden administration and Democratic leadership in Congress, claiming that they are not condemning or taking action against Israel for what she contends is a disproportionately lethal use of force in its response to the Hamas terror attack.
Opposing Views and Positions
Throughout her career, among the public comments that Ms. Omar has made about Israel are those that even members of her own party and other Muslims have denounced.Congressional members of the Republican and Democratic parties, including 12 Jewish Democratic members of the House and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, chastised Ms. Omar for comments she made in a video call on June 10, 2021, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Ms. Omar posted online a segment of the call in which, her critics asserted, she equated the policies and actions of Israel and the United States to those of Hamas and the Taliban.
In February 2019, Ms. Omar drew a bipartisan rebuke when, in attributing Republican support for Israel to the money GOP candidates received from AIPAC, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, she tweeted: “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” a reference to U.S. $100 bills. Those who took exception to the tweet said it played into a long-held antisemitic portrayal of Jews as unscrupulous financiers and money lenders.
Ms. Omar later apologized for both comments.
Ms. al-Aqidi has a record of vigorously defending Israel, and with equal energy criticizes Hamas and Ms. Omar.
“I do not underestimate Ilhan,” Ms. al-Aqidi, an international journalist, told The Epoch Times. “She means what she says.”
A Difficult Task
With Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District ranking as one of the most liberal in the nation—indeed, no Republican has represented the district since the 1960s—and with Ms. al-Aqidi being a conservative who touts her admiration and support for former President Donald Trump, she is by any estimation and projection a long shot and underdog.Ms. Omar, born in Somalia, first won the seat in 2018 and has been reelected twice.
Ms. al-Aqidi ran an abbreviated campaign in 2020 to unseat Ms. Omar. She announced her candidacy in January 2020 for the GOP nomination, but that June she withdrew from the race to endorse and support fellow Republican Lacy Johnson, a Minneapolis businessman.
Mr. Johnson, a political newcomer, lost handily in the general election to Ms. Omar, 64.9 percent to 25.9 percent, but he proved that he could raise money. His campaign brought in $12.1 million to Ms. Omar’s $5.7 million haul.
Ms. al-Aqidi was born and grew up in Iraq. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Fine Arts in Baghdad.
She made her first trip to the United States in 1991 and legally immigrated to the United States in 1993.
“I have many titles—a journalist, an analyst, an activist, a woman, a refugee, a secular Muslim,” said Ms. al-Aqidi. “But one title supersedes all else and it’s the one I’m most proud of, and that is the title of American.”
In her 30 years in journalism, Ms. al-Aqidi has developed and produced television and radio shows presented in English and Arabic, and has been based in and reported from capitals across the Middle East and Europe, and Washington.
Ms. al-Aqidi’s interview with The Epoch Times is the first in which she goes in depth into her foreign policy views and positions.
“Israel must remove Hamas,” said Ms. al-Aqidi. “Americans would demand the same of our government if anything even remotely close to that kind of terrorist massacre happened here. But beyond these obvious American expectations, we should be hoping for that outcome because it makes us safer here.
“When radical Islamist terrorist groups are able to score victories against our allies, they are able to recruit more terrorists and it gives them strength.”
Iran’s Alleged Involvement
Ms. al-Aqidi says that Iran’s fingerprints are all over the Hamas Oct. 7 attack and believes that the Obama and Biden administrations’ policies toward Iran abetted Iran’s ability to support Hamas and other terrorist groups.“There’s no question of Iran’s direct involvement in guiding Hamas materially, strategically, and financially,” said Ms. al-Aqidi. “Iran also directly controls Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The only reason the Biden administration can’t find the obvious evidence staring it in the face is because it would shine a spotlight on their policy of appeasing Iran.”
Ms. al-Aqidi said that both administrations based their policies on the “flawed assumption that you could give Iran more than $100 billion, and that would moderate a regime that calls us ‘Big Satan’ and Israel ‘Little Satan.'”
Ms. al-Aqidi says that Iran uses other opponents of Israel as “cannon fodder” to achieve its aims.
“Nothing is worth less to the regime in Tehran than Palestinian blood. The regime has no problem fighting to the last Palestinian. Over the last decade we saw Iran willing to fight to the last Afghani, Pakistani, and Iraqi to support Assad in Syria. And Iran has no problem using Hezbollah to fight to the last Lebanese, either.”
“Hezbollah is Iran in Lebanon. They are Iran’s most valuable achievement since the 1979 revolution.”
Ms. al-Aqidi said that Hamas may have actually underestimated the carnage it would sow in the attack, and an unintended result is that it has brought about its own destruction.
“I don’t think Hamas thought it would be able to kill, rape, and burn civilians in such numbers, much less capture over 100 hostages, including so many Americans. So, in a sense, they didn’t just poke the proverbial Israeli bear; they stepped on its feet, slapped its face, and made off with their cubs.”
Ms. al-Aqidi also said she thinks that Iran did not anticipate the scope, intensity, and devastating effectiveness of the Israeli response.
“But, again, it’s not the Iranian lives on the line–unless Israel or the United States decides they are on the line. What will most likely happen is that everyone else will fight and die for Iran, and Iran will race to complete and weaponize its nuclear program.
A Message for Youth
“The campus anti-Israel protests, and condemnation of the nation defending itself is grotesque and stomach-turning,” said Ms. al-Aqidi. “Yet it is the inevitable conclusion of the left’s identity politics, critical race theory, the new anti-colonialism movements, and the worship of victimhood status.
“Living in Minneapolis, I was at ground zero when the protests and riots erupted in the wake of George Floyd. Can anyone imagine holding a white supremacist rally the next day? Of course not. It would be unthinkable and roundly condemned. But Israelis were massacred, and before they even responded, throngs of antisemites pretending to be merely pro-Palestinian were in the streets. What would have been the response on college campuses if there was a white power rally waving Confederate flags?”
Ms. al-Aqidi requests that young people of Arab descent remember why their families came to America, and to think about what they left behind.
“Many Arab immigrants came here to start businesses, and to be free of corruption. Republican policies are pro-business and pro-economy. Many came here to escape crime and violence—and so I would ask them how defunding the police is helping them. I would ask them how the flow of fentanyl, which fuels an epidemic of young people dying, and which is enabled by open borders, is treating young Arabs.”
