Rashida Tlaib: A Profile in Courage

During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

While she may have been a lone protest voice during Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) did what is right.

Most mainstream news reporting either ridiculed her or only briefly mentioned her silent protest displaying a sign with “War Criminal” printed on one side and “Guilty of Genocide” on the other. Missing was any analysis as to whether she was right. Let’s look at the facts.

We are outraged that the taxes of workers are being used to kill, maim, and slaughter innocent people.

Any objective observer of the war in Gaza must conclude that the Israeli government is guilty of war crimes and that those crimes are enabled by U.S. military aid. Ninety percent of the 2.3 million besieged residents of Gaza have been displaced. More than 39,000, mostly women and children, have been confirmed killed. The world-renowned medical journal TheLancet recently calculated that—once adding those beneath the rubble and dying from injuries and lack of medical care, disease, and famine—hat number will soon be closer to 200,000 people. Most homes have been razed. The medical system has been systematically targeted and destroyed, as have the water and sewer systems. Israel has intentionally blocked food aid, inducing widespread famine Between 111 and 165 journalists have been targeted and killed. People forced to move to “safe zones” have then been bombed.

The definition of genocide includes “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has charged, and its chief prosecutor has requested an arrested warrant for, Netanyahu for war crimes, including the purposeful starvation of civilians, willfully causing great suffering, and killings targeting the civilian population. As an indication of their impartiality, the ICC also charged the Hamas leadership with crimes against humanity.

Bolstering the ICC action is the everyday tragic news. As I write, Israel has just killed 30 and injured 100 civilians by bombing a school being used by displaced Gazan refugees.

Forty-five U.S. doctors and health professionals who carried out volunteer health services in Gaza sent a recent letter to U.S. President Joe Biden calling for a cease-fire and arms embargo sharing that, “with only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking… Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets.”

Shame on both the Republican and Democratic Party leadership for inviting a war criminal to address Congress and giving him a green light to continue the crimes against humanity.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) not only made it clear that she would not have invited Netanyahu to speak before Congress but that he made the worst speech of any foreign leader afforded that opportunity. She is right, as Netanyahu openly attacked those in this country who are protesting his war crimes and continued U.S. military aid and spread absolute falsehoods that the protests are funded by Iran. His rotten statement was also directed against those family members of Jewish hostages who were protesting Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate a cease-fire to free their loved ones.

While Rashida Tlaib, the one Palestinian-American in Congress, courageously protested inside the Capitol, thousands of us, including this union leader and proud Jewish-American, were peaceably demonstrating outside demanding a cease-fire, condemning Netanyahu’s crimes against humanity, and the U.S. government for continuing to send armaments to Israel.

I am proud that my union, which deplored the Hamas actions of October 7 and condemned Israel’s barbaric response, called for the release of all hostages and advocates for a permanent cease-fire and for massive humanitarian aid. Recently, our union took further action by a vote at our national convention to demand that our government halt military aid to Israel and joined six other unions, representing over 6 million U.S. unionized workers, calling on President Biden to implement an arms embargo. As the largest arms supplier to Israel, the Biden-led U.S government should use its leverage to stop the carnage. We are outraged that the taxes of workers are being used to kill, maim, and slaughter innocent people.

Most people in the U.S. and across the world support calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In this time of urgent crisis, those protesting Netanyahu’s war crimes take inspiration from Congresswoman Tlaib’s “profile in courage” and refuse to be silenced in the continuing struggle for solidarity, justice, peace, and freedom. The cries of humanity demand nothing less.