CNN anchor John King and CNN global affairs analyst Aaron David Miller on Monday both criticized the veracity of controversial remarks made by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., about the Holocaust.
Tlaib has been criticized by Republicans, including President Trump, for saying she was comforted knowing Palestinians helped create “a safe haven for Jews” to their detriment after the Holocaust.
Although King argued some Republicans were twisting the comments as she has claimed, he also acknowledged that Tlaib’s statement “fails a critical fact and context test.”
“Yes, as she said, Palestinians lost land in the creation of Israel, but she ignored the fact that Palestinian leaders at the time allied themselves with Hitler and the total war is how the Arab world reacted to the declaration of Israeli independence,” King said.
Miller said the use of the Holocaust as a political metaphor was not appropriate.
“I think there ought to be a ban on the deployment or employment of Holocaust imagery and metaphor in Washington politics. Every time it’s used and deployed, and has been, by Republicans, Democrats, it’s wrong,” Miller said.
“She also has her history wrong, I mean, on two points,” Miller added. “Number one, it’s an arguable proposition even had there been no Holocaust. Most of the institutions of the current state of Israel were in place before Hitler started killing Jews. So the Holocaust added urgency and international support, but I suspect with or without it the state of Israel would have come into being.”
Miller also criticized Tlaib’s contention that Palestinians helped create a safe haven for Jews, noting that Palestinian leaders, including the grand mufti, were in close contact with Nazis during the Holocaust “collaborating and cooperating with the Nazis about what would happen if Rommel’s Korps had been successful in Egypt and been present in Palestine.”
“They were considering extermination of the entire Jewish community there as well,” Miller added, calling Tlaib’s comments “ill-advised” and that the remarks are going to “polarize the already polarized debate in Washington.”
Tlaib, whose parents were Palestinian immigrants, made the comments in an episode of Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast released Friday. While discussing Israel on the podcast, she brought up the Holocaust.
“There’s always kind of a calming feeling I tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors — Palestinians — who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports,” Tlaib said.
“And just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy, and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, and it was forced on them,” she added.
Among those who have criticized Tlaib include Trump who called the statement “highly insensitive” and Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations who called the comments anti-Semitic. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called on Republicans to apologize to Tlaib, saying the words were taken out of context.
