Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar rip Trump, Israel for barring them
Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday decried Israel’s decision to ban her and fellow Rep. Ilhan Omar from visiting the Jewish State — tearfully recalling her family’s treatment in the occupied territories during visits and vowing to reveal “the truth” about the treatment of Palestinians.
“As a young girl, visiting Palestine to see my grandparents, I watched as my mother had to go through dehumanizing checkpoints — even though she was a United States citizen and proud American,” she said during a news conference in Minneapolis with Omar in which they slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump.
“All I can do as the granddaughter of a woman who lived in occupied territory is to elevate her voice by exposing the truth the only way I know how,” the Michigan lawmaker continued.
“It is unfortunate that Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken a page out of Trump’s book.”
The Israeli PM last week banned the pair for their allegedly anti-Semitic views after Trump tweeted that they hated Israel and called for them to be barred.
The PM later said Tlaib could visit her grandmother, but she declined due to restrictions on her.
The pair deny accusations of anti-Semitisim and insist they only opposed the Israeli government’s polices regarding the Palestinians.
Omar, who represents Minneapolis, accused Netanyahu of trying to conceal the truth about the settlements.
“The decision to ban me and my colleagues, the first two Muslim-American women elected to congress, is nothing less than an attempt by an ally of the United States to suppress our ability to do our jobs as elected officials.
”I had planned to travel to Israel and Palestine to hear from individuals on the ground about the conflict so that i could be more informed as a member of Congress and as a member on the Foreign Affairs Committee,” she said.
Her constituents were “appalled” that Trump had backed their banishment, which was supported by many pro-Israel groups and politicians but opposed by the Jewish American lobby AIPAC, Democrats and some Republicans.
Omar and Tlaib, meanwhile, caught heat after posting a cartoon drawn by an artist who has created what critics called anti-Semitic imagery and mocked victims of the Holocaust.
The freshman Democrats posted on Instagram a cartoon that depicts Bibi and Trump silencing them by covering their mouths.
“Oof. Looks like both Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib shared this awful Carlos Latuff cartoon in Instagram stories yesterday,” tweeted Batya Ungar-Sargon, opinion editor at The Forward.
“In 2006, Latuff came in second in Iran’s International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which is a thing that exists.”
Latuff defended his use of the Holocaust to assail Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, even while acknowledging that the two are not exactly the same.