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Tlaib Slams White House for Criticizing Cori Bush's Vow to Fight AIPAC
One observer predicted that one day, Bush will "be remembered for valiantly standing up for the rights of Palestinians when too many still did not have the political courage to do so."
Aug 08, 2024
U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday ripped the White House for admonishing Rep. Cori Bush's vow to fight the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the powerful lobby group spent millions of dollars to unseat the Missouri Democrat for opposing Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
AIPAC's dark money arm, United Democracy Project (UDP), spent $8 million in support of Bush's opponent, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, in the second-most expensive House race ever. UDP spent $15 million to defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), another "Squad" member who has criticized Israel's war on Gaza. AIPAC has vowed to spend $100 million to unseat progressive lawmakers—many of them Black and brown—who it deems insufficiently supportive of Israel.
In a defiant concession speech on Tuesday night, Bush declared, "AIPAC, I'm coming to tear your kingdom down!"
"All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid," she added.
Asked Wednesday if President Joe Biden had any opinion regarding Bush's remarks, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre—who in 2019, before her current job, called AIPAC "severely racist"—linked the congresswoman's speech to last month's attempt to kill former President Donald Trump.
"The president has always been very clear—and very recently, after the assassination attempt of the last president—about lowering rhetoric, right?" Jean-Pierre said. "It is important... that we be very mindful of what we say. This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful."
Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress,
responded on social media: "You know what's not helpful? Sending bombs to be used for war crimes and killing thousands of children. You know what's not helpful? Attacking a sitting U.S. congressmember, while the org you are defending is funding anti-abortion and insurrectionists (sic) candidates."
Despite Israeli forces killing nearly 40,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—wounding more than 90,000 others, forcibly displacing around 90% of Gaza's population, and starving children to death with a crippling siege, the Biden administration continues give Israel billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic support including multiple United Nations Security Council vetoes.
On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump, was
interrupted by pro-Palestine protesters during a campaign rally in Detroit, home to one of the nation's largest Muslim communities.
They chanted: "Kamala, Kamala, you can't hide! We won't vote for genocide!"
Harris, staring down the hecklers, replied: "You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I'm speaking."
According to AIPAC Tracker, Harris, has taken nearly $5.4 million in campaign contributions from AIPAC as either an individual candidate or Biden's running mate.
Leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement—a coalition of pro-Palestine, peace, and progressive groups that urged people to vote "uncommitted" in U.S. Democratic presidential primaries in a bid to pressure the Biden administration to push Israel for a Gaza cease-fire—said they met briefly with Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at the Detroit rally.
"The vice president shared her sympathies and expressed an openness to a meeting with Uncommitted leaders to discuss an arms embargo," the group said.
However, Harris' national security adviser, Phil Gordon, said on social media Thursday that the vice president "does not support an arms embargo on Israel" and "will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups."
Early in the war, Bush introduced a cease-fire resolution supported by 18 other House Democrats. This and other pro-Palestine advocacy, including support for an arms embargo, drew the ire of AIPAC and others supporting a war for which Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the World Court. Dozens of other lawmakers have also called for a Gaza cease-fire.
Such opposition to Israeli policies and practices was once all but unimaginable.
"Over the last two decades, we have seen quite a remarkable shift in opinion on this issue among Democrats in particular," Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote for The Guardian on Wednesday. "Numerous public opinion polls all provide evidence of the same trend. Democrats especially, but also Independents, have grown less sympathetic to Israel over time. A Pew poll from March 2023 found that for the first time, Democrats had more sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis."
Munayyer continued:
The support for Israel once enjoyed in the U.S., when people took it to be as normal as the sun rising every day, is gone. Maintaining what support is left will require persuasion—which isn't easy given they are trying to persuade audiences to support war crimes—and increasingly coercion. That era of coercion and repression is what we are quickly transitioning to and will shape the years to come, but that too comes with reputational costs for pro-Israel forces and will eventually collapse as well.
"When it does," he added, "voices like Cori Bush's will be commonplace in our political class and she will be remembered for valiantly standing up for the rights of Palestinians when too many still did not have the political courage to do so."
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'We Do Not Support' ICC Probe of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza, Says White House
"ICC warrants against Israel and Hamas will offer the West a choice: Either torpedo the international criminal justice project they have advanced since 1945 for good or hypocritically demand impunity for Israeli war crimes."
Apr 29, 2024
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday reaffirmed the Biden administration's opposition to the International Criminal Court potentially issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top officials related to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.
"Would the U.S. or the White House see any potential arrests by the ICC as an aggravating factor in the negotiations?" one journalist asked about talks to end the bloodshed and free hostages.
Jean-Pierre responded: "So, we've been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it. We don't believe that they have the jurisdiction. And I'm just gonna leave it there for now."
#WATCH | On International Criminal Court's (ICC) investigation into Israel's conduct in Gaza, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre says, "...We don't believe is in the ICC jurisdiction in this situation. We do not support the investigation. And I think that kind of… pic.twitter.com/du8NpEtLxj
— ANI (@ANI) April 29, 2024
Asked later about President Joe Biden's Sunday call with Netanyahu and whether the U.S. government is involved in any attempts to avert warrants from the Hague-based court, the press secretary echoed her previous comments.
The exchanges followed reporting that the Israeli government, in partnership with the U.S., is "making a concerted effort to head off" possible arrest warrants from the ICC targeting Netanyahu as well as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
Citing two unnamed Israeli officials, Axiosreported that Netanyahu on Sunday asked Biden to help prevent the ICC from issuing warrants. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told the outlet that "as we have publicly said many times, the ICC has no jurisdiction in this situation and we do not support its investigation."
Neither Israel nor the United States is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the treaty that established the tribunal, but Palestine accepted its jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed "in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem," in 2015.
The ICC formally launched its war crimes investigation in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2021, long before the IDF began its ongoing retaliation for the Hamas-led attack October 7 on Israel. The probe includes crimes going back to June 13, 2014.
Urging Biden "to intervene as part of the administration's ongoing commitment to Israel," U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) on Monday declared that "it would be a fatal blow to the judicial and moral standing of ICC to pursue this path against Israel."
Mark Kersten, an assistant professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, responded: "Now a Democratic senator is threatening the ICC's very existence if it does what it was created to do: Impartially and independently investigate international crimes, without fear or favor. I hope this grotesque threat and atrocity-denialism is roundly condemned."
Also noting Fetterman's comments, Alonso Gurmendi, a lecturer in international relations at King's College London, said: "They really don't realize just how isolated Western governments are on this. Even among their own populations. This won't be a fatal blow to the ICC. It will relaunch its relationship with the global majority. Fighting this will only isolate and weaken the West further."
In January, the International Court of Justice found that Israel is "plausibly" engaged in genocide in Gaza. As of Monday, the Israeli bombardment and blockade had killed at least 34,488 Palestinians in the Hamas-governed strip, injured another 77,643, left thousands more missing in bombed-out communities, and displaced around 90% of the enclave's 2.3 million people.
Since October, the United States has ramped up its billions of dollars in military support for Israel. The Biden administration has been accused of being complicit in genocide in federal court. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for June.
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'This Is an Attempt to Silence My Voice': Tlaib Condemns GOP Censure Motion
"I'm the only Palestinian voice right now in Congress. If anything, my voice is needed here more than ever."
Oct 12, 2023
Facing attacks by fellow Democrats and a censure motion from a Republican congressman from her home state of Michigan, Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday accused her critics of intentionally misportraying her as a Hamas sympathizer due to her condemnation of Israeli war crimes in Palestine.
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)—whose third-biggest campaign contributor during the 2022 election cycle was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—on Wednesday introduced a motion to censure Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, for what he called "her antisemitism and disgraceful response to the attacks on our ally, Israel."
On Saturday, Hamas and other militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza in a wave of attacks that have since killed more than 1,300 Israeli soldiers and civilians, including many women and children. Israel responded by bombarding Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and killing over 1,400 Palestinians—including at least 447 children—while cutting off power and water and trapping 2.3 million people in the besieged enclave.
"Much of what I'm hearing from Jack and a number of other colleagues is rooted in bigotry, that somehow because of my ethnicity and my faith that I support terrorism."
On Sunday, Tlaib issued a statement mourning the "Palestinian and Israeli lives lost," while asserting that the path to a peaceful future must include lifting Israel's blockade of Gaza, ending its illegal occupation of Palestine, "and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance."
Tlaib's statement also asserted that the "heartbreaking cycle of violence" would continue until the United States stopped giving "billions in unconditional funding" to support Israel's apartheid government.
Citing unverified claims that Hamas "beheaded infants," Bergman's resolution—which was joined by Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas), another beneficiary of AIPAC's largesse—called Tlaib's statement "disturbing and evil."
Responding to Bergman's motion, Tlaib told the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday that "I'm the only Palestinian voice right now in Congress. If anything, my voice is needed here more than ever."
"This is an attempt to silence my voice because I want the violence to stop, no matter whether it's toward Israelis or toward Palestinians," she asserted. "Much of what I'm hearing from Jack and a number of other colleagues is rooted in bigotry, that somehow because of my ethnicity and my faith that I support terrorism."
Tlaib and other "Squad" members including Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—who condemned the killing of civilians on both sides while urging an end to U.S. support for "Israeli military occupation and apartheid"—also faced harsh rebuke from fellow Democrats in the Biden administration and Congress.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called their comments "disgraceful" and "repugnant," while pro-Israel congressional Democrats piled onthe condemnation.
"It sickens me that while Israelis clean the blood of their family members shot in their homes, they believe Congress should strip U.S. funding to our democratic ally and allow innocent civilians to suffer," Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) said of Tlaib and her Squad colleagues in a Tuesday interview with Jewish Insider.
"U.S. aid to Israel is and should be unconditional, and never more so than in this moment of critical need," Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) told Jewish Insider. "Shame on anyone who glorifies as 'resistance' the largest single-day mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. It is reprehensible and repulsive."
AIPAC was by far Gottheimer's largest contributor in the 2022 electoral cycle, donating more than $216,000 to his campaign. The same goes for Torres, who received over $141,000 from the group during the same period.
The Nation's John Nichols noted Thursday that Tlaib, Bush, and Omar are being condemned "for saying what prominent Israelis are saying."
Nichols cited Israeli human rights lawyer and rules-of-war expert Michael Sfard, who said: "Hamas committed abominable war crimes for which there can be no forgiveness. But the laws of war weren't meant only for situations in which our blood is cool, or when there is no justified anger or understandable desire for revenge."
He also quotes Israeli journalist Amira Hass, daughter of Holocaust survivors, who wrote in Haaretz that "in a few days Israelis went through what Palestinians have experienced as a matter of routine for decades, and are still experiencing."
"Therefore, this must be said once again—we told you so," Hass added. "Ongoing oppression and injustice explode at unexpected times and places. Bloodshed knows no borders."
Critics have noted that Israelis can freely express truths that, when voiced by Americans, result in condemnation, ostracism, and even loss of employment.
This isn't the first time Tlaib and other progressive Democrats have faced possible censure for defending Palestinians' human rights and criticizing U.S. support for Israeli apartheid, occupation, illegal settler colonization, and other crimes. In 2021, a trio of GOP lawmakers tried and failed to censure Tlaib and Omar—the first two Muslim women elected to Congress—and other Squad members for comments criticizing Israel.
In February, Republicans removed Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in what Jewish Voice for Peace called a "racist attack by the far-right to silence progressives in Congress who speak up for a human rights-centered foreign policy, including Palestinian human rights."
Tlaib and Omar have also received death threats for expressing their views, and have been targeted by a vast international fake news operation exploiting far-right social media accounts to spread Islamophobia.
Undaunted, Tlaib told the Free Press Wednesday that she will continue to remind her congressional colleagues that "a Palestinian life is just as important as an Israeli life," and that, like Hamas, the Israeli government "has to be held accountable for some of its atrocities."
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