US Rep. Rashida Tlaib plans to hold an event in the Capitol opposing Israel’s establishment this week.
“Nakba 75 & The Palestinian People” is set for Wednesday, to mark the “catastrophe” – the meaning of the word Nakba – of Israel’s establishment in a 400-seat auditorium in the US Capitol Visitor Center.
“Nakba Day” events portray the Palestinians as victims, rather than parties to a conflict with Israel. In 1948, five Arab armies attacked the fledgling Israel, with support from Palestinian leadership.
Her partners in organizing the event include organizations supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel and NGOs that have expressed support for terrorism. For example, Jewish Voice for Peace has glorified the First Intifada in which Palestinians killed close to 300 Israelis, and the Institute for Middle East Understanding lionized the Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan that died last week after a hunger strike and Ghassan Kanafani, who orchestrated the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre in which 26 people, including 17 US citizens, were murdered.
Events at the Capitol Visitor Center can only be held by request from a member of the US Congress or an Officer of Congress, indicating Tlaib’s direct involvement in organizing the event.
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said that “there is strong bipartisan support in Congress for the US-Israel relationship, and no effort that attempts to rewrite history and question Israel’s right to exist has any hope of succeeding.
“At a time when that relationship is integral to our joint fight against terror, expansion of Israeli-Arab normalization efforts, and shared security and intelligence efforts, this narrative only sows divisiveness and hate,” Gottheimer stated.
Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinians and history
Tlaib is the daughter of Palestinians, whose grandmother lives in the West Bank. She has repeatedly come under fire for remarks related to Israel and Jews, and even Holocaust distortion. Tlaib hung a map in her office that did not have Israel on it, indicating a view that the whole land is Palestine, and has repeatedly called Israel an apartheid state. She played into the antisemitic canard that shadowy, greedy Jews control the world by referring to people "behind the curtain" who "exploit the rest of us for their own profit...They do it from Gaza to Detroit."
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz said Tlaib's comment that one cannot be "progressive except for Palestine" was "nothing short of antisemitic," and ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt concurred, saying Tlaib was subjecting American Jews to "an anti-Zionist litmus test to participate in progressive spaces."
Tlaib once said she has a "calming feeling" about the Holocaust, claiming that Palestinians created "a safe haven for Jews... I love the fact that my ancestors provided that."
In fact, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini collaborated with Hitler, organizing Muslim SS divisions. Adolf Eichmann said, upon a visit to the Middle East, that "Nazi flags fly in Palestine."