Dalia al-Aqidi, the Iraq-born GOP candidate seeking her party's nomination in Minnesota to campaign against Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, told Newsmax Thursday that while she hates to "play identity politics," she needs to use her background to counter Omar's rhetoric.
"Sadly this district is famous for being the ground zero of antisemitism led by a woman who shouldn't be in Congress in the first place," al-Aqidi, who like Omar is a Muslim, said on "Newsline."
Al-Aqidi fled Iraq in 1988, and she told Newsmax that she came to the United States with the help of a "good friend," late U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, who was killed in Benghazi in 2012.
Al-Aqidi has worked with various news outlets, including Voice of America and Al Arabiya, along with serving as a media adviser to the U.S. Department of Defense in Iraq.
The journalist and activist said that now she's running for Congress because she wants to inform the world that Ilhan Omar and "her antisemitic attitude do not represent the good people of the Fifth District nor the good people of Minnesota."
"If we look at her as a lawmaker, she stands with every country that is against the United States," she said, adding that she's recently visited Israel because "it's our best ally and our strongest ally, not only in the Middle East but in the region. I want to stand with our ally just like any normal politician would do."
Meanwhile, al-Aqidi said she does not know how Omar has been able to get away with her actions for so long, and said it's "complicated" how she has gotten elected.
"Let me tell you what brought her to Congress is the white guilt," said al-Aqidi. "People here wanted to feel good about themselves, wanted to stand against the narrative that the white men are oppressors. That's why they decided to just vote for a woman and immigrant, a Muslim … identity politics."
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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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