Former Democratic Rep. Steve Israel said that Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib sometimes “play right into Donald Trump’s hands” during a Monday appearance on MSNBC.
Israel was asked about the recent debacle where the Israeli government barred the two freshman congresswomen from entering the country, after being pressured by Trump, citing a law that allows them to prevent people who have publicly supported a boycott of the country from entering, and they’ve done that. Former Rep. Israel explained that some of the congresswomen’s responses actually helped the president and not themselves.
During an appearance on Andrea Mitchell Reports, Israel stated, “When they do the stuff that they’ve done, you know, calling for a boycott of Bill Maher, as they did this weekend and retweeting an anti-Semitic Holocaust cartoon, they play right into Donald Trump’s hands and they give him a victory that he should not have.”
As Israel referenced, Tlaib suggested people should boycott HBO’s Bill Maher’s show on Saturday, a day after he was critical of the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement, which seeks to penalize Israel for their treatment of Palestinians. He called the movement “a bullshit purity test.”
Oof. Looks like both Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib shared this awful Carlos Latuff cartoon in Instagram stories yesterday. In 2006, Latuff came in second in Iran’s International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which is a thing that exists, in case you thought the TL couldn’t get any worse. pic.twitter.com/uwyBPAsz7T
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) August 18, 2019
Israel also pointed out that the two congresswomen posted a cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump holding their hands over their mouths while they shushed the congresswomen. Carlos Latuff, the artist, has a history of controversial cartoons depicting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have been accused of anti-Semitism.
