An embattled school district in Virginia has been ground zero for controversial public school education policies and one member of the college board has often made headlines for her left-wing talking points.
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) board member Abrar Omeish has sparked outrage amongst parents lately for her comments about capitalism, racism, White supremacy and American history.
During a faculty board meeting last week, the 28-year-old Muslim school board member described the Battle of Iwo Jima as “unlucky” and “evil” while discussing the Day of Remembrance which commemorates the victims of Japanese-American internment during World War II and coincides with the U.S. invasion of Iwo Jima, which occurred on Feb. 19, 1945.
“Just just a few days ago was Japanese Day of Remembrance,” Omeish said through the meeting. “Something for us to actually reflect on … the times when, you understand, Iwo Jima unfortunately happened and set a record for really what, I hate to say, human evil is able to.”
The Battle of Iwo Jima, where almost 7,000 American service members died attempting to capture the island of Japan from the imperial Japanese, is taken into account a big U.S. victory in World War II.
In an announcement to Fox News Digital Omeish said she was “very disenchanted” that her statements on Iwo Jima and the Japanese Day of Remembrance “have been so misrepresented.”
“I would love to set the record straight,” she told Fox News Digital. “Before the battle at Iwo Jima in Feb 1945, Japan knew it couldn’t defend the island, but its Government still demanded its military forces to fight to the death. Regardless that Lieutenant General Kuribayashi knew there was no possibility of winning the battle, Prime Minster Hideki Tojo sent him on a suicidal mission to inflict as many casualties as possible on allied forces and to never give up. The unnecessary spilling of blood was not right.”
“At the identical time, our own Government also knew in Feb 1945 that the overwhelming variety of 120,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans posed no threat to American security,” she added. “By that point, the Japanese American 442 Infantry Regiment was already well on its method to becoming probably the most decorated American military unit in WWII. The refusal of our own Government to release the Japanese prisoners was and will proceed to be condemned. Our government’s actions were also not right. Through the school board meeting, I discussed each points to nuance our discussion regarding these events.”
Omeish said the “deliberate distortion” of her statements is “completely unfounded and albeit shocking.”
“Truthfully, it is tough to not see how the distortion will not be loaded with its own fears about me and driven by what’s entirely unrelated to this subject: the wrong assumption stories like these rely upon— that Muslim by some means implies anti-American,” she concluded.
Omeish is the youngest person to be elected into her role of at-large school board member at FCPS, representing the Fairfax County’s 1.2 million residents from its nine districts, based on the district website. She was sworn into office in December 2019 together with her current term set to run out on Dec. 31, 2023.
In 2021, she received parental backlash after she gave a politically charged speech on the Justice HIgh School commencement where she told the primarily-minority student body to recollect their “jihad,” as they enter right into a racist world which she described as overcome by “extreme versions of individualism and capitalism.”
“Our world is overwhelmed with need,” Omeish said during her speech. “We struggle with human greed, racism, extreme versions of individualism and capitalism, White supremacy, growing wealth gaps, disease, climate crisis, extreme poverty amid luxury and waste right round the corner. And the list goes on.”
The coed government president who introduced Omeish before her speech mentioned that the young school board member also campaigned for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and that her father, Esam Omeish, was a “leader and board member of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center,” which is the namesake of a mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers in 2001, the unconventional imam Anwar Al-Awlaki and Nidal Hasan, the 2009 Fort Hood shooter, Fox News Digital previously reported.
FCPS said in an announcement that Omeish’s comments were protected under the First Amendment and that they were her personal views, not those of the college board or district. FCPS parent Gary Aiken said on the time it was “absurd” that a faculty board member’s views wouldn’t represent the college district, especially those made during a speech at a school-sanctioned graduation ceremony.
Omeish has also upset Jewish parents within the district, calling Israel as an apartheid state in what Aiken called “vile anti-Semitic tweets on her social accounts,” based on an interview with “Fox & Friends First” in 2021.
“That desecrates the Holy Land and kills Palestinians,” Aiken said. “And this caused huge outrage amongst over 250,000 Jewish Americans here in Northern Virginia and it sparked outrage across all political lines and there have been calls for her to apologize. She offered no apology. She doubled down on it.”
Omeish attended FCPS schools and is a graduate of Yale University, based on FCPS’ website.
She “believes within the importance of holistic education– a framework that appears on the well-being of a baby not only academically but additionally socioemotionally, mentally, intellectually, physically, spiritually, morally, and civically,” the web site says. “She goals to advocate for college kids, staff, neighboring residents, and the encompassing environment to construct compassionate nurturing environments for the entire community.”
