“Squad” Democrat and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) has taken friendly fire from her side of the aisle after a wild rant during a recent rally, during which she made remarks that many on the right and left were anti-semitic. The main angle of attack came from Gov. Whitmer of Michigan, who flamed Rep. Tlaib in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
As background, the incident began as a spat between Rep. Tlaib and Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, who brought charges against anti-Israel protesters who caused chaos at the University of Michigan in mid-September of this year. Rep. Tlaib insisted that AG Nessel’s Jewish heritage and love of Israel caused her to prosecute the anti-Israel protesters.
Tlaib, born a Palestinian, said, having a bit of a meltdown about the idea that the prosecutor would go after the protesters, “We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoff.”
Then, getting from the issues for which she characterized protest as being allowed to the Israel matter and AG Nessel’s heritage, Rep. Tlaib said, “But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs.”
AG Nessel was the first to go on the attack against Rep. Tlaib in response to the comment and insinuation. She said, in a post on X, “Rashida’s religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she’s a terrorist. It’s Islamophobic and wrong. Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong.”
Chiming in, Michigan State Senator Moss said, in a post on X, “This is a disgusting charge of dual loyalty — Jews in America cannot fully uphold American ideals because we are fundamentally biased in favor of our religion over our citizenship.” He added, “Rep. Tlaib continues to divide us into ‘good’ Jews she accepts & bad Jews.”
Later on, Gov. Whitmer of Michigan appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” program to speak about issues and, when the spat between AG Nesser and Rep. Tlaib came up, said that she would not be getting into their argument. She said, “I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having.” Watch her here:
That stance of Gov. Whitmer’s changed, however, in a statement that quickly followed her interview with Mr. Tapper on “State of the Union.” In that statement, she said, “The suggestion that Attorney General Nessel would make charging decisions based on her religion as opposed to the rule of law is antisemitic.”
Continuing, she argued that AG Nesser has always done good work in accordance with the law, and that the sort of rhetoric spewed by Rep. Tlaib must be seen as unacceptable. She said, “Attorney General Nessel has always conducted her work with integrity and followed the rule of law. We must all use our platform and voices to call out hateful rhetoric and racist tropes.”
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