Make no mistake: Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar want Israel to pay. They want its economy and government suppressed, just as Palestine’s has been for decades. An eye for an eye: that is a Judeo-Christian doctrine, after all.
Tlaib and Omar both support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, which the House overwhelmingly condemned in a resolution last week. Tlaib dismissed the resolution in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, saying it disregards the “right to boycott the racist policies of the government and state of Israel.”
Tapper wasted no time: “Do you think the Jewish people have the right to a state in the area where Israel exists now?” he asked.
“I truly believe the state of Israel is — it exists, correct,” Tlaib responded. “But understand, does it exist in the detriment of inequality for the Palestinian people, the detriment of not moving forward in a peaceful resolution? We’re never going to have peace, I truly believe, if separate but equal is the way they want to go.”
Tapper continued to press Tlaib: “Yes or no, does Israel have a right to exist?”
“Of course,” she responded, “but just like Palestinians have a right to exist, Palestinians also have a right to human rights. We can’t say one or the other. We have to say it in the same breath or we’re not going to actually have a peaceful resolution.”
At first glance, Tlaib’s response seems reasonable. Yes, the Palestinians have as much right to exist as the Israelis, the Egyptians, the Saudis, etc. A binary, one-or-the-other lens will not create lasting peace in a region that so desperately needs it. But unfortunately, Tlaib’s support of BDS, a movement decried as anti-Semitic by members of her own party, undermine her words.
The goal of BDS is to force Israel to accept a two-state solution by boycotting its products, encouraging corporations to divest their economic benefits from the country, and labeling Israel an apartheid state that systemically disenfranchises its Palestinian neighbors of their human rights. More plainly, its goal is the delegimatization and ultimate demise of the state of Israel. Cloaked behind the well-known doctrine of social justice, BDS masquerades as a peaceful mission while promoting the popular Palestinian slogan, “From the river to the sea!”
It should come as no surprise, then, that BDS has been endorsed by various terror organizations throughout the region and is regularly justified by anti-Semitic doctrine in mosques, churches, and other religious organizations.
Context matters. Of course, Tlaib disavows terrorism and anti-Semitism. But both sit at the core of the BDS movement. It was created to ensure the destruction of Israel, this isn’t a secret. But Tlaib seems bent on ignoring this reality. Either that, or she’s naïve enough to embrace a movement without understanding why it exists in the first place. Or even worse, she doesn’t care.
Israel’s policies toward Palestinian residents in the West Bank and its other territories are well worth criticism. But advocating for a movement that pretends to combat injustice while introducing its own kind of bigotry and exploitation is naïve at best, and hateful at worst. Let’s hope Tlaib’s advocacy is the former.
