The US House of Representatives voted 234-188 to censure Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. 22 Democrats joined with Republicans to censure Tlaib.
Tlaib posted a video on Friday criticizing the Biden administration for supporting Israel in the war against Hamas. The video included pro-Palestinian protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” which many Jewish organizations have classified as being a genocidal call for the total elimination of Israel. The Anti-Defamation League notes the phrase has been adopted by terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Sadam Hussein, the PLO, and the PFLP, which all seek Israel’s destruction through violent means.
“It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state,” the ADL writes. “It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.”
The Hamas 2017 constitution states, “
Ironically, when the Likud Party was established in 1977, its charter read, “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
Hamas Tlaib wrote in a subsequent post on Twitter that the phrase is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”
A tearful Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Tuesday accused the U.S. government and U.S. President Joe Biden of dehumanizing Palestinians.
Wearing a keffiyeh during a debate to censure her for her statements about Israel’s war with Hamas, Tlaib claimed in a speech on the House floor that as the only Palestinian-American member of Congress she spoke for a majority of Americans in demanding a ceasefire.
“Do you realize what it’s like, Mr. Chair, for the people outside the chamber, right now, listening in agony to their own government dehumanizing them?” Tlaib said. “To hear the president of the United States we helped elect dispute death tolls as we see video after video of dead children and parents under rubble?”
“I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable,” Tlaib added.
Having avoided censure in a separate vote on Wednesday, Tlaib posted a video on social media on Friday with the slogan “from the river to the sea” prompting two separate censure motions from Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R.-Ga.) that were introduced on Monday.
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of 70 members of Congress issued a statement describing that expression as a “rallying cry for the destruction of the State of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people.” The statement did not condemn Tlaib by name.
Before the vote, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said the phrase “from the river to the sea’ was “widely understood as calling for the complete destruction of Israel”
Tlaib defended the slogan in a follow-up post, claiming it was “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence.”
Talib was born in Detroit. Her parents are Arab Israeli immigrants to the US.
