There are few things in human history as old as blood libels. For centuries, whenever a child turned up dead, local Jews were blamed. The truth is an afterthought. What’s important for anti-Semites is the fact that the death of a child provided an opportunity to vilify Jews.
This virulently anti-Semitic tradition of blood libel made famous in the Middle Ages in Europe has continued in the modern Middle East. Often, when a child passes away in the Palestinian territories, those around the child will look for ways to blame Israel in some capacity. Dead children are used as props. Sadly, we’ve come to expect it.
But here’s what we must never accept: American lawmakers disseminating the blood libels spread by Palestinian propagandists. And sadly, that’s exactly what Rep. Rashida Tlaib did over the weekend.
The Times of Israel reports:
Tlaib, a Palestinian American who is a Michigan Democrat and one of only two lawmakers to back the boycott Israel movement, retweeted a tweet by Hanan Ashrawi, a top Palestinian official, who was quote-tweeting an account, realSeifBitar, that accused Israeli settlers of kidnapping, assaulting and throwing into a well an eight-year-old child. ‘The heart just shatters,’ Ashrawi said.
In fact the boy, Qais Abu Ramila, appears to have drowned accidentally in a reservoir of rainwater in eastern Jerusalem. Israeli first responders found him on Saturday and tried to revive him.
Tlaib removed her retweet, and Ashrawi eventually apologized for ‘retweeting something that’s not fully verified.’ Tlaib did not retweet the retraction.
This isn’t Tlaib’s first flirtation with individuals trafficking in blood libels.
Before her trip was canceled due to Israel’s refusal to admit the organizers, we learned that the “Palestinian organization that had organized Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar’s planned delegation to Jerusalem and the West Bank once claimed that Jews put Christian blood in matzah.” This is the most classic iteration of the blood libel before its evolution in the modern Middle East.
Omar, Tlaib’s fellow “Squad” member, has her own checkered past with spreading anti-Semitic content, having done so on more than one occasion.
When she portrayed American supporters of Israel as having been bought off by Jews, a full-blown scandal erupted. Even Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Chelsea Clinton weighed in, chiding the congresswoman for trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. Yet she got away with it. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives tried (and failed) to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. (It instead passed an extremely watered-down version, decrying “all hate” more generally instead.)
The Democratic Party failed to condemn anti-Semitism, and that failure sent a message which Omar and Tlaib heard quite clearly. They were given a free pass to traffic in and promote anti-Semitism.
They’re not afraid to cash it in. Tlaib’s amplification of a blood libel over the weekend and her refusal to apologize for it shows that the congresswoman and her “Squad” of far-Left colleagues are determined to keep testing the boundaries of how far they’ll be allowed to go, how plainly they will be able to display their anti-Semitism.
Outside of the Jewish press and conservative media, Tlaib’s latest Twitter behavior has been met with silence. Much of the liberal media and most of Tlaib’s Democratic colleagues haven’t even bothered to highlight the event, let alone condemn it. (However, it’s of note that the CEO of the left-leaning Anti-Defamation League has condemned Tlaib’s blood libel.)
This is an example of how the blood libel works in 2020. @RashidaTlaib retweets a vicious lie steeped in centuries-old accusations used to demonize Jews, then says nothing when it’s disproven. An apology is overdue.https://t.co/s8n97T0CVB
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) January 26, 2020
But many others on the broader Left have not condemned Tlaib. They have accepted that an American lawmaker is not only an anti-Semite, but not shy about it, either.
The Rubicon has been crossed. One of the two major political parties in this country is openly accepting of anti-Semites in its midst. We have not even begun to understand what the ramifications of this new reality are.
Bethany Mandel (@bethanyshondark) is a stay-at-home and home-schooling mother of four and a freelance writer. She is an editor at Ricochet.com, a columnist at the Forward, and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
