After Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was quoted in the New York Times as musing about when “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” became offensive terms, he was widely condemned by fellow Republicans, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has stripped King of committee assignments. Yet freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., continues to promote anti-Semitism, and yet far from sanctioning her in any way, Democrats haven’t even criticized her.
As a Palestinian Muslim female, Tlaib has been celebrated by Democrats and the media as a trailblazer, symbolic of the diversity of the new House majority. Yet ever since her election, she has been unapologetically promoting anti-Semitism.
In the most recent example, she was photographed with a supporter at a private party in Detroit celebrating her swearing in to Congress. As I reported, the man pictured was a Palestinian activist who has praised the terrorist group Hezbollah, said Israel did not have the right to exist, and has called for Israeli “Zionist terrorist” Jews to return to Poland, where roughly three million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Tlaib’s response wasn’t to deny it or distance herself from the man or his comments, but to lash out at the “right-wing media” for reporting it and defiantly saying, “Yes, I am Muslim and Palestinian. Get over it.”
Right wing media targeting me again rather than focusing on the President’s reckless government shutdown. Yes, I am Muslim and Palestinian. Get over it.
Focus on the human impact of this disaster. #EndTheShutdown
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) January 15, 2019
This, of course, is not a one-off event. Shortly after her election, she promoted a petition to reinstate Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired as a CNN pundit after he made comments calling for the elimination of Israel “from the river to the sea” and endorsing violence against Jews as a legitimate tactic of “resistance.” Tlaib also unleashed the anti-Semitic “dual loyalty” smear to lawmakers backing a measure targeting boycotts of Israel. She herself has endorsed the boycott Israel, or BDS, movement.
Just last year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “Why does BDS single Israel out alone for condemnation when there is such a double standard — when the world treats everybody one way and the Jew or the Jewish State another way? There’s only one word for it: anti-Semitism. Let us call out the BDS movement for what it is. Let us delegitimize the delegitimizers by letting the world know when there is a double standard, whether they know it or not, they are actively participating in an anti-Semitic movement.”
It doesn’t take much to speak those words before a pro-Israel audience, but now Schumer is nowhere to be seen when it comes to calling out somebody within his own party who is “actively participating in an anti-Semitic movement.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told AIPAC in 2017, “I hope we can come together on efforts to oppose boycott, divestment and sanctions. We must.” Really? How sincere could she be in her conviction that “we must” oppose BDS if she can’t even criticize it within her own caucus?
Pelosi and Schumer are cowards. They have a base that is increasingly hostile toward Israel and increasingly willing to excuse or downplay anti-Semitism that’s masked as mere criticism of Israel. Now, they are afraid to call it out. Their silence on Tlaib speaks volumes.
