Progressive “Squad” members defended Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) against attempts to censure the Michigan representative over her anti-Israel stance on Tuesday.
“What is true here is that every single one of [the pro-Israel representatives] has not acknowledged that Palestinians are dying in the tens of thousands, but will continue to say it is us who are not acknowledging humanity,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) said on Tuesday. “Rashida will stand strong and the Palestinian movement will continue for liberation until every single Palestinian has the right to live in liberty.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) reintroduced a resolution this week that would censure who she calls “Terrorist Tlaib” for allegedly inciting and participating in an illegal anti-Israel demonstration near the Capitol on October 18. It was at that rally that Tlaib falsely blamed the Israeli military for a hospital strike she said killed Palestinian children. The blast was actually caused by a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a fact Tlaib claims is a conspiracy theory.
To push back against representatives who wish to censure her, Tlaib said her perspective as the only Palestinian-American representative “is needed here now more than ever.” Tlaib’s perspective has been used in the weeks following Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel that killed more than 1,400 civilians to spout anti-Israel rhetoric. This weekend, Tlaib said that a popular rally-cry of pro-Palestinian protesters, “from the river to the sea,” is an “aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.” The chant refers to the eradication of Israel.
Democrats and Republicans alike have condemned Tlaib’s comments. Reps. Brad Schneider (D., Ill.), Hillary Scholten (D., Mich.), and Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.) called the chant a “rallying cry for the destruction of the State of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) said that no elected leader should “amplify language that inflames a tense situation & makes it harder for our communities to find common ground,” and Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) called Tlaib’s “extremism” flat-out wrong.
Yet members of the ultra-progressive squad, of which Tlaib is a member, all rushed to the Michigan representative’s defense on Tuesday. Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) said on X that she “stand[s] with Rashida,” and Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), concurred.
“As the death toll in Gaza passes 10,000, we should be focused on doing everything we can to save lives. Instead, Republicans are trying to silence @RepRashida by distorting her positions and introducing censure resolutions filled with lies,” Bowman wrote on X. “We need her voice now more than ever.”
Voices like Tlaib’s have erupted in a nationwide chorus of pro-Hamas sentiment. Protesters chant “from the river, to the sea” on college campuses at which Jewish students have been harassed, assaulted, or threatened. An elderly Jewish man was killed on Sunday, when he fell to the ground after a pro-Palestinian protester hit him in the head with a megaphone, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said. Antisemitic hate crimes have reached “historic levels” since Hamas’s October 7 attacks, according to FBI director Christopher Wray.
“The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum,” Wray warned last week.