Rep. Rashida Tlaib said on Friday that she will not visit her family in the West Bank due to the conditions required by the Israeli government. The decision follows a reversal by Israel, which first barred the Michigan Congresswoman from the country and later granted her entry on humanitarian grounds.
"Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart," the freshman Democrat said in a statement. "Silencing me with treatment to make me feel less-than is not what she wants for me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands up against racism and injustice."
Tlaib had submitted a formal request to Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Thursday requesting a visit to see family and her aging grandmother who lives outside Ramallah. "This could be my last opportunity to see her," the request letter read.
Deri had approved the request under the condition that Tlaib cease her support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a formal campaign aimed at curbing international support for Israel over its treatment and policies towards Palestinians. The movement also aims to pressure Israel to comply with international law on issues such as expanding Israeli settlements in Palestianian territories, which has been declared illegal by the United Nations.
Tlaib's request "was just a provocative request, aimed at bashing the State of Israel," Deri said on Twitter. "Apparently her hate for Israel overcomes her love for her grandmother."
The dual reversals come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had originally announced that Tlaib and fellow Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota would not be allowed into the country, claiming that the "sole purpose" of their visit is to "increase incitement" against Israel.
Netanyahu's decision followed an extraordinary tweet from President Trump urging Israel to bar the two sitting U.S. Congresswomen. "They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds," Trump said.
<i>Democratic Representative from Minnesota Ilhan Omar (L) and Democratic Representative from Michigan Rashida Tlaib at an event in March. Photo Credit: EPA-EFE/Shutterstock.</i>
Trump's tweet and the decision to bar the lawmakers from an allied country — one that receives billions of U.S. dollars in aid — rocked the political consciousness in Washington and in Israel.
"As a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, it is my job to conduct oversight of foreign aid," Omar said in a statement. "The irony of the 'only democracy' in the Middle East making such a decision is that it is both an insult to democratic values and a chilling response to a visit by government officials from an allied nation."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the denial of entry of the Congresswomen "is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great State of Israel" — a direct rebuke of Trump's tweet, which said the entry of Omar and Tlaib would "show great weakness."
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee — the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group better known as AIPAC — also said that while it does not support the Congresswomen's "anti-Israel" positions, it does believe that every member of Congress should be able to visit Israel. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also said blocking their entry was a mistake.
Yet Washington's ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said in a statement that the U.S. supported Israel's earlier decision to deny entry. "This trip, pure and simple, is nothing more than an effort to fuel the BDS engine that Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar so vigorously support," Friedman said in a statement.
Tlaib and Omar — the first two Muslim American women ever to be elected to Congress — have been vocal supporters of the BDS movement. In July, the Congresswomen and just a handful of other lawmakers voted against a resolution to formally condemn the BDS campaign. The bill passed overwhelmingly with 398 votes in favor and 17 against.
In a tweet on Friday, the BDS movement said that "Palestinians do not bow to oppressor's diktats" and that the attempt by Israel's "far-right regime" to humiliate Tlaib had failed.
"I cannot allow the Israeli government to take that away from them or to use my deep desire to see my grandmother, potentially for the last time, as a political bargaining chip," Tlaib added in her statement.
The school shooting in Texas that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead has reignited the debate over gun control.
The tragedy in Uvalde is the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade and marks the latest in a string of mass shootings in the country. Jared Moskowitz, Broward County Commissioner and candidate for Congress in FL-23, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss why gun control measures are stalled in the Senate, and where legislation can move forward from here.
Police and detectives are still investigating the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two adults. Cheddar News was joined by Kirk Burkhalter, professor at New York Law School and former NYPD detective to gain some insight on what investigators are looking for and what comes next.
Texas authorities say the gunman who massacred 21 people at an elementary school was in the building for over an hour before he was killed by law enforcement officers.
Join Cheddar News as we break down the top headlines for Thursday, May 26 including updates on the Texas school shooting, President Joe Biden's executive order on police reform, and a recount in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary.
Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia rebuked words from the FDA commissioner that could have been construed as blaming parents for stockpiling baby formula exacerbating the shortage.
Cheddar News reporter Megan Pratz brings the latest from the scene of yesterday's horrific school shooting at a Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Now the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with 19 children and two adults killed, Pratz goes into comments by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, details about the deceased shooter, and reactions from members of the community.
The Robb Elementary School mass shooting killing 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas pm Tuesday was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and came just 10 days after the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York. Nelson Vergara, the founder and CEO of 360 Protective Solutions, joined Cheddar’s Opening Bell to discuss. "Right now what law enforcement is concentrating on is trying to trace his steps as to what motivated the gunman to act the way he did. What it boils down to just trying to figure out what led to his motivation to do such a horrific act.”
An recently conducted AP-NORC poll found that majorities of the Black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. still find themselves either somewhat worried or extremely worried over the pandemic, while more than half of white Americans responded with either being not too worried or not worried at all. Dr. Chris Pernell, the chief strategic integration and health equity officer at University Hospital, joined Cheddar News to talk about how perceptions of COVID-19 differ between groups of Americans. "We’re still seeing people get infected, and because of the toll of the disproportionate impact, we have concerns among the Black and brown community about whether or not they have an increased risk of exposure because of where they work, because of the use of public transportation, because they live in homes that they may not be able to safely quarantine and or isolate in, and because they have at baseline chronic health conditions that may make coronavirus more severe in those persons," she said.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the EPA and the president of Beyond Plastics, joined Cheddar News to talk about the role of plastics in the climate crisis and California's investigation of ExxonMobil and other oil companies for misleading the public on the ability to recycle plastics. "The reason why petrochemical companies like Exxon have gotten away with selling more and more plastic is that they've lied to the public and told us don't worry about all those negative upstream impacts and downstream impacts of plastics. Just be sure to recycle it. Well, guess what? Plastics largely are not recycled," Enck said.
