Ilhan Omar slammed by Ritchie Torres for taking policy positions that ‘would have led to more dead Israelis’

A progressive Democratic congressman, who is often aligned with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), criticized her on Monday for taking policy positions that “would have led to even more dead Israelis and more dead Palestinians.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) responded to a comment Omar made on Friday, when she asked him, “How many more killings is enough for you?” regarding his support for Israel in its war against the terrorist group Hamas.

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“Is it 1,000 more, 2,000 more, 3,000? How many more Palestinians would make you happy if they died?” she asked at a press conference. “Would you be fine if all of the people of Gaza were gone? Would that make you happy? Would that be the thing that makes you proud? And maybe that’s the question you should ask Ritchie: How many more Palestinian lives is he comfortable with?”

Speaking with CNN’s Dana Bash, Torres said, “I obviously resent those comments. You know, every casualty is a tragedy. Every war is a humanitarian crisis.”

“But we have to keep in mind the causes of the war. Israel did not start the war. The war was imposed upon Israel by the barbaric terrorism of Hamas, which butchered 1,400 Israelis, including babies,” he explained.

He then noted Omar’s history of voting against funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which he noted “protects Israeli civilians from relentless rocket fire.”

“Were it not for Iron Dome interceptions, there would be far more dead Israelis, far more, by orders of magnitude,” he added.

Torres additionally took to Instagram to respond to Omar’s direct call-out at the press conference. “Congress Member Ilhan Omar falsely accused me of being ‘happy’ about the death of Palestinians. It is the most vicious lie that one can tell about a colleague,” he wrote in a Monday post.

“Congress Member Omar voted against Iron Dome, which (a) protects Israeli Jews and Arabs from thousands of rockets and (b) deescalates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saving both Israeli and Palestinian lives,” he told followers. “Given Congress Member Omar’s opposition to Iron Dome, one must ask: how many Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians must die from endless rocket fire and escalated conflict before she summons the moral decency to support Iron Dome?”

He concluded by telling his followers, “Without Iron Dome, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust would have been deadlier.”

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The rift between the two members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus puts on display the fractures within the Democratic Party when it comes to support for Israel.

In polling from Gallup in March, prior to the war between Israel and Hamas, Democratic sympathy toward Palestinians surpassed that for Israelis for the first time since being measured in 2001, at 49% versus 38%.