Recently, the United States House of Representatives voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her stance over the ongoing Israeli-Hamas conflict. Tlaib has been accused of supporting genocide against the state of Israel.
Nearly two dozen Democrats joined 212 Republicans in a 234-188 vote moving for the censure of the Michigan Democrat. The motion aimed to punish Tlaib for spreading “false narratives” regarding the Hamas attack against Israel early last month. The representative also faces accusations of promoting “the destruction of the state of Israel.
According to the resolution, Tlaib “defended the brutal rapes, murders, be-headings, and kidnapping—including of Americans—by Hamas as justified ‘resistance’ to the ‘apartheid state,'” while adding that she “knowingly spread the false narrative that Israel intentionally bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital on October 17 after United States intelligence, Israeli intelligence, and President Biden assessed with high confidence that Israel did not cause the explosion.”
The resolution called out a prior comment from Tlaib where she posted a video with the common antisemitic phrase “to the river to the sea,” meant to symbolize the extension of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Many consider this to be a call for the genocidal removal of Israel from this territory.
“Whereas, on November 3, 2023, Representative Tlaib published on social media a video containing the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which is widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” the resolution read.
According to the American Jewish Committee, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” is a common call-to-arms for pro-Palestinian activists, especially student activists on college campuses. It calls for the establishment of a State of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, erasing the State of Israel and its people. It is also a rallying cry for terrorist groups and their sympathizers.”
The House initiative further denounced Tlaib, who attempted to justify the antisemitic phrase by stating that it was well-intentioned. “Whereas Representative Tlaib doubled down on this call to violence by falsely describing “from the river to the sea” as “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence” despite it clearly entailing Israel’s destruction and denial of its fundamental right to exist,” the resolution continued.
The House of Representatives condemned Rep. Tlaib’s comments as “unbecoming” as an elected leader in the lower chamber. The resolution reemphasized the danger of spreading false narratives in the context of this violent conflict.
“Whereas Representative Tlaib has repeatedly displayed conduct entirely unbecoming of a Member of the House of Representatives by calling for the destruction of the state of Israel and dangerously promoting false narratives regarding a brutal, large-scale terrorist attack against civilian targets inside the sovereign territory of a major non-NATO ally while hundreds of Israeli and American hostages remain in terrorist captivity: Now, therefore, be it. Resolved, That Representative Rashida Tlaib be censured,” the resolution concluded unapologetically.
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