Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib, at a conference tied to terrorist groups, urged President Biden to adopt a “red line” on Israel’s military conduct in Gaza.
At the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, over Memorial Day weekend, the “Squad” member said to a cheering audience: “The International Court of Justice just ruled the Israeli government must stop its invasion of Rafah. But President Biden says what is happening to us is not a genocide. Where’s your red line President Biden?”
Tlaib slammed Biden for “attacking the authority” of the International Criminal Court, which recently issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for presiding over Israel’s military mission in Gaza to destroy Hamas. Biden condemned the ICC’s “outrageous” directive, shifting back to defending the Jewish state after having threatened, earlier this month, to withhold military aid if Israel moved into Rafah, a key Hamas stronghold.
“There is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden declared.
Among the speakers at the Michigan event was Wisam Rafeedie, an activist associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist terror group active in Gaza and headquartered in the Syrian capital of Damascus. The U.S. State Department, as well as Japan, Canada, and the European Union, has designated the PFLP as a terrorist organization.
“I don’t need to tell you that you’re on the right side,” Tlaib said in her speech on Saturday. “I don’t need to. But I’ll be damned if I wait ten years before they apologize to all of you for doing what was right at this moment.”
Tlaib has had fundraising connections to at least three Hamas-linked activists, including one who has served prison time for his connection to the terror group, according to a November report by the Canary Mission, a website that compiles dossiers on antisemitic activists and organizations. The three pro-Hamas activists — Salah Sarsour, Rafeeq Jaber, and Abdelbaset Hamayel — hosted meet-and-greet fundraisers for Tlaib during her initial run for Congress in 2018.
The keynote speaker at the People’s Conference for Palestine was Sana’ Daqqah, the wife of PFLP terrorist Walid Daqqah. In April, Daqqah died from cancer in an Israeli prison, where he was detained for leading the PFLP operation that kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984.
The Israel Defense Forces said in November that Hamas, which perpetrated the brutal October 7 invasion of Israel, likely handed over a ten-month-old Israeli infant and his family to a separate Palestinian terror group in Gaza. Security analyst Michael Horowitz told the Telegraph that the group is believed to be the PFLP.
In November, the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development published a report stating that humanitarian assistance to Palestinians could “fall into the hands of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) including, but not limited to, Hamas.”
It cited two examples in recent years when the federal agency had sought recompense after it provided funds to applicants that went to fund terrorist groups such as Hamas and the PFLP.