MINNEAPOLIS - Two days later, Representative Ilhan Omar's tweets still sting in the Twin Cities Jewish community.
Ron Latz, a DFL State Senator from St. Louis Park, said in an interview Tuesday that Omar "causes us harm and fear every time she's tweeting like this."
Six years after accusing Israel of having "hypnotized" the world during a Nov. 2012 clash in Gaza, Omar again drew the ire of Jewish leaders this weekend when she suggested U.S. support for Israel in the struggle with Palestinians is "all about the Benjamins" — widely interpreted as meaning financial support from lobbyist groups like AIPAC.
Omar's latest tweets were condemned on both sides of the political spectrum. Some elected officials, like Latz, said Omar has now displayed a pattern of anti-Semitic references to age-old Jewish conspiracies related to financial control of world affairs.
"Jews have been targeted for milliena, from ghettozation, to the pogroms, to confiscation of property, to the mass murder during the Holocaust," Latz said. "Anyone who cares about minority rights, who cares about having a diverse community, we have to respect everyone in the community."
Latz said he was particularly disheartened because he and other Jewish leaders met with Omar before her congressional primary, where they discussed the Jewish perspective on Middle East issues and explained why the "hypnotized" tweet was offensive to them.
"I'm calling on Representative Omar," Latz said, "to stop the hurtful tweets."
Omar has not backed down from her objection to the policies of Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu's right-win coalition government in Israel, and even in her apology, she did not back down from her distaste for the influence of lobbyists like AIPAC in federal government.
Still, she has now apologized twice for unknowingly using anti-Semitic tropes — both in 2012 tweet and this weekend — as she pledged to work with the Jewish community to learn more about the historical context of such stereotypes.
That didn't stop President Trump from calling for Omar's resignation from Congress.
On Tuesday, he called for Omar to either resign altogether or at least step down from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, despite her apology.
"Her lame apology — that's what it was, it was lame — and she didn't mean a word of it," Trump said.
Omar, however, has not indicated she will resign from anything.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also has no plans to remove Omar from committee assignments, even though she publicly condemned the remarks along with Democratic leadership.
Omar has met with a number of Jewish colleagues this week, including Dean Phillips, who took office this year as the first Jewish U.S. representative from the state of Minnesota. Omar also tweeted about a productive meeting Monday with Congressman Max Rose, a Jewish Democrat who initially criticized Omar's language.
Omar's apologies haven't satisfied everyone in the Democratic party, but Rose told reporters Monday that he looks forward to working with Omar about their shared values. He then promptly turned his attention to the Republican Party, which he said has a poor record on anti-Semitism itself.
Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, for example, shared a now-deleted tweet suggesting wealthy Jewish people were trying to "buy" an election. Rose identified McCarthy specifically, because Omar posted her tweets Sunday in response to McCarthy's suggestion she be punished for supporting a boycott of Israel.
"There's some hypocrisy going on there, too," Rose said, using an expletive to describe the GOP's stance. "In the face of anti-Semitism, we don't acknowledge party, in the face of any hate, any vitriol, we don't acknowledge party."
In light of his calls for Omar's resignation, some Democrats have also pointed out that President Trump's campaign faced accusations of amplifying anti-Semitic themes.
The president, for example, tweeted an image of Hillary Clinton with an apparent Star of David over a backdrop of a money pile, which Trump defended as a "Sheriff's Star" or "plain star." His campaign also faced pressure, including from former Minnesota Senator Al Franken, for a final campaign advertisement in Nov. 2016 that showed pictures of wealthy Jewish people while criticizing "global special interests."
Count State Sen. Latz among those who reject the president's calls for Omar's resignation.
"Frankly, it's the pot calling the kettle black," Latz said, noting that the president also endured a controversy when he seemingly equated neo-Nazis in Charlottesville with protesters. "The president has no business wading into this, with that kind of call. He's got no moral authority on the issue."
In terms of Omar, Latz said he wished the representative had given a more forceful apology.
"If she truly wants to be an honest and objective member of Congress on the Foreign Relations Committee in the House, she needs to be open to being educated," Latz said.
However, some have defended Omar this week — including the Council on American-Islamic Relations — claiming she has a right to criticize the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians.
"The right will always use Israel and anti-Semitism as a tool to destroy left-wing movements, especially when they're led by people of color," CAIR's national account tweeted on Tuesday.
Ashley Feinberg, a HuffPost reporter, wrote on Twitter in defense of Omar that "accurately describing how the Israel lobby works is not anti-Semitism." That tweet was retweeted nearly 7,000 times as of Tuesday night.
AIPAC, the organization Omar criticized Sunday night, is short for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The group does not give money directly to candidates but has long held influence over Middle East policy. Recently, it has aligned itself more with Netanyahu's government, whereas other interest groups have taken a more liberal approach toward ongoing conflicts.
Latz said he personally disagrees with a number of the Israeli government's policies, including settlement expansion and Prime Minister Netanyahu's approach to the peace process.
But he said healthy discourse must not cross the line into anti-Semitism.
"Where it crosses the line is when you start using language that invokes the stereotypes, invokes the tropes," Latz said, "that have secondary, tertiary meanings that are dog whistles. It sends more than just the message that you're trying to stay you disagree."