Attention to the Democratic Squad — meet a candidate for Congress, Mazi Pilip. She’s the natural answer to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and other leftist members on Capitol Hill. She’s tough on immigration and crime. As an Ethiopian Jew and an Israeli Defense Forces veteran, she’s an avid supporter of Israel.

Ms. Pilip is battling, as a Republican, to win a seat in New York’s third congressional district in a special election on February 13. Her foe is the Democrat, Tom Suozzi, who held the seat for six years until he mounted a failed bid to take on Governor Hochul. The seat was, until last month, held by the noted fabulist, George Santos.

“When I go to Congress, they’re going to see a Black woman, as a mother, as an immigrant and a former IDF soldier, as a person who grew up in Israel, to tell them the truth about Israel,” Ms. Pilip says in conversation at the Sun’s offices with associate editor A.R. Hoffman. “Maybe, I will be the example of how we are supposed to appreciate this beautiful country, the United States of America.”

One could view Ms. Pilip and Ms. Omar as mirror images of each other — both are female immigrants from Africa with diametrically opposed political views. “Ilhan Omar and the Squad Members have been damaging Israel’s image,” Ms. Pilip says. “They’ve been very anti-Israel, to be honest, even anti-American.” 

Ms. Pilip, who is a Nassau County legislator, was chosen out of 30 candidates by New York Republican leadership to keep the seat left vacant by the embattled Mr. Santos red. She faces a competitive race against Mr. Suozzi, whose party is paying for vicious ads that portray her as an extremist “MAGA” mouthpiece for President Trump.

 “Shame on them,” Ms. Pilip says of Mr. Suozzi’s campaign. “They’re lying to the public. But the third congressional district residents are smart enough to realize who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. And I am here to serve the people, to be the voice for everyone.”

The Long Island district Ms. Pilip is running to represent swung for Secretary Clinton in 2016 and President Biden in 2020, but also was represented for years by a conservative congressman, Peter King. The former congressman calls her “the American success story,” the New York Times observed, and hailed her “superstar capacity.” 

The district’s residents, Ms. Pilip says, care most about how the migrant crisis is hurting New York and the safety concerns arising from diminishing local law enforcement.

“Defunding the police movement is not something that’s going to work with me,” Ms. Pilip says, the only candidate in the race who has been endorsed by three major police unions. In America today, she warns, “we are giving more rights to criminals than the law-abiding citizens.”

Ms. Pilip’s stance on illegal immigration at the nation’s border is clear — “it is irresponsible.” As a two-time immigrant herself, married to a Ukrainian-born doctor, she says that “this country is about immigration and this country was founded by immigrants,” but that the way Mr. Biden and the “left progressive Congress members are promoting these things is wrong on every level.” She notes that Mr. Suozzi was a majority member in Congress as Mr. Biden’s open-border policies began. 

Just as it is within America’s national interest to secure the Southern border, so too is it within its interest to send Israel the aid it needs as soon as possible, urges Ms. Pilip. “Strong Israel, strong America,” she says. “Israel is our allied nation, a democratic country really sharing our values, and this is our national security and national interest to support Israel.”

“The best time of my life” is how Ms. Pilip describes her service in the Israeli Defense Forces after immigrating to the Jewish state at age 12 when a civil war erupted in Ethiopia. “It was my thank you to Israel.”

On the issue of abortion, Ms. Pilip supports states’ rights to legislate abortion as they see fit, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which returned the issue to “the people and their elected representatives.” She does not support a national abortion ban. “Even though I have seven children, and I am a religious person,” she says, “I’m not going to force my own belief onto any woman.”

On another hot-button topic, gun control, Ms. Pilip says she respects the right to bear arms and supports following the regulation rules. She adds a caveat, though, venturing that “we need to make sure that guns don’t go to the wrong hands of people with mental issues or criminals or terrorists.”

“I don’t like to talk,” Ms. Pilip asserts, just weeks before her journey from a village outside of Addis Ababa could lead her to taking the oath of office at the District of Columbia. “I like to deliver.”