CNN's Christiane Amanpour asks newly elected Rep. Ilhan Omar about a tweet she sent in 2012 that reads: "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel." "I remember when that was happening," Omar said. "Watching TV and really feeling as if no other life was being impacted in this war, and that really, those unfortunate words were the only words I could think about expressing at that moment." "What is really important to me is that people recognize that there is a difference between criticizing a military action by a government that has exercised really oppressive policies and being offensive, or attacking to a particular people of faith," she added in response. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gaza?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Gaza</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Palestine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Palestine</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Israel?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Israel</a></p>— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) <a href="https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/269488770066313216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2012</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Omar also addressed the tweet in a Thursday morning CNN interview: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rep. Ilhan Omar on saying Israel has "hypnotized the world": "I don’t know how my comments would be offensive" to Jews. <a href="https://t.co/hNj8Qq6Kt8">pic.twitter.com/hNj8Qq6Kt8</a></p>— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1085925498365071362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>