The Racists Who Attack Rashida Tlaib
By Yossi Schwartz, Internationalist Socialist League (RCIT Section in Israel / Occupied Palestine), 15.05.2019, http://www.the-isleague.com
Today the Palestinians and their supporters will mark 71 years since the Nakba, the mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in order to form a Zionist state with Jewish majority. Israel replies to the mass demonstration in Gaza with shooting and wounding at least 30 Palestinians have been shot so far.
While the UN marks the day of the Jewish holocaust and this is good, it does not mark the Nakaba, which is bad, as it allows Israel to do everything it can to hide this crime. Yet it is impossible to hide this crime as some courageous people remind the world of this war crime.
One of them is Rashida Tlaib who is one of two American legislators who are Muslim women and are accused time and time again by the racist American President, who is an extremely dangerous person pushing for trade wars and for a war against Iran, as Anti-Semites because they take a progressive stand on Palestine.
During an interview with Yahoo's Skullduggery podcast that was released on Friday, Tlaib was asked about her support for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian:
"There's kind of a calming feeling, I always tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust," she answered. "... And the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity. Their existence in many ways have been wiped out, and some people's passports. "I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post the Holocaust, post the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time, and I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways."But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right, and it was forced on them. And so when I think about a one-state, I think about the fact that: Why couldn't we do it in a better way?" (1)
This statement was immediately attacked by Republicans in support of Trump and by the right wing Zionist Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations who accused Tlaib of anti-Semitism and of trying to rewrite history with her comments, while President Donald Trump called Tlaib's remarks "horrible and highly insensitive".
Why Danon says that this statement is Anti-Semitic? Is it not true that the Zionists made an ethnic cleansing in 1947-8? Is it not true that the Palestinians lost their land, life and dignity in 1948 and 1967? Is it not true that the Palestinians have being paying for the crime of the Nazis?
It is Danon who rewrites history because he belongs to the to the genocide deniers. Israel not only tries to hide the Nakba but for years it also denied the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottomans.
Danon represent a government that is not hiding its plans to annex area C of the West bank of the West Bank (60% of it) and imposes a siege on the starving people of Gaza. A government that kills in average one Palestinian every day. This government loves to accuse progressive people as Anti-Semites and yet its best friends are the very far right including Anti-Semitic regimes in East Europe, Brazil and the Philippines and of Nazi parties in various countries.
It is true of course that the Palestinians did not offer to give the Jews their lands and the creation of Israel was forced on them. Nevertheless it is a fact that Palestine is the country the Zionist colonialists settled in and after the war many of the survivors came as Tlaib wrote.
In spite of the Zionist crimes, Rashida Tlaib has the courage and the generosity to offer a solution of one democratic state where Jews and Palestinians will live as equal. This is a serious crime in the eyes of the Zionists. What is the nature of Israel we can see by the fact that “on Sunday, the Central District Court in Lod approved a plea deal between the settler's lawyers and the state prosecutor's office under which a settler was cleared of the murder conspiracy charges following the burning to death of Saad Dawabshe, 31, his wife, Reham, 27, and their 18-month-old son Ali who were killed when settlers set on fire their home in the village of Duma in Nablus in July 2015.” (2)
As part of the plea bargain, the suspect - whose name has been withheld - pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit a crime motivated by racism. The indictment was modified to specify the crime as arson, and not murder, under the deal, the settler, would not serve more than five years in prison in connection with the murder. He is still facing charges in relation to three other ideologically motivated incidents, including the torching of a Palestinian taxi in Kafr Yussuf, the burning of a warehouse in Aqraba and vandalism in Beit Safafa.” (3)
In a few days the Eurovision will take place in Israel. Those who will sing in this lousy event will sing in praise of the Zionist Apartheid. They will sing for theft and murder for oppression of the native Palestinians. Israel is not Nazi Germany but certainly is similar to the South African Apartheid regime. The Eurovision in Israel brings to mind the fact that in 1936, Berlin was chosen for the Olympic Games. It was six years before the mass killing of the Jews began, but opponents of the regime were sent already to the Dachau, (4) that was founded in March 1933. The international committee that choose Berlin knew of the camp. It simply asked the Nazis to remove the road signs that showed the way to the camp.
The racists who believe that the Jews are the chosen people and a master race hate those who dare to offer the only political solution that will end the blood shading of Palestinians and Jews, a democratic state for the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews, a state that can be formed as part of the victorious Arab revolution, a workers democracy as part of the socialist Federation of the Middle East.
Israel was never a bourgeois democracy but is an ethnocracy, however under the criminal Prime Minister of Israel it is liquidating even this form of democracy only for the Jews. Unless an Israeli Jew is a supporter of Netanyahu he is called a lefty and a traitor.
Trump clearly has a different solution than the one democratic state or even a two states solution. After the Ramadan he is going to tell us what is his solution. We may guess that he will support the annexation of area C.
There is no doubt that real Anti-Semitism exists and it is necessary to quash it. The trouble with the Zionists and their supporters is that they call any one who is not a right wing racist and critical of Israel, an Anti-Semite. By doing so they turn Anti-Semitism to a racist weapon against those who oppose the war crimes of the Israeli state against the Palestinians.
For one red Palestinian democratic state.
Appendix A:
Rashida Tlaib: Policing my words and twisting them won't work
“Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib:
Statement on lies being spread regarding Congresswoman Tlaib's appearance on Yahoo's SkullDuggery Podcast. (5)
'Stop attacks against Muslim women'
Democratic leaders rallied behind Tlaib with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer accusing Republicans of taking Tlaib's words out of context.
Nancy Pelosi: Republicans’ desperate attempts to smear @RepRashida & misrepresent her comments are outrageous. President @realDonaldTrump & House GOP should apologize to Rep. Tlaib & the American people for their gross misrepresentations. (6)
“Tlaib, a Democrat of Palestinian heritage, has previously come under fire or her comments and position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Alongside Ilhan Omar, Tlaib is one of the first two Muslim legislators in US history to sit in Congress. She has criticised Israel and the US approach to the issue before and has called for one state for both.
Omar has also faced criticism from Republicans over her comments on Israel. She apologised in February for using what many considered an anti-Semitic trope when criticising a pro-Israel lobbying group.
Tlaib's supporters said the criticism had more to do with the fact that the congresswoman is Muslim woman than it did about her comments.
Omar, responding to Trump's tweet criticising Tlaib said, "You praised people at a neo-Nazi rally. We don't have to imagine. This is another transparent attempt to sow division b/t minority communities and distract from your own criminal behavior by smearing a Muslim woman. No one should fall for it this time." She was referring to the August 2017 United the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. During that rally, a white supremacist drove his car into a group of counter protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Ilhan Omar:
You praised people at a neo-Nazi rally. We don't have to imagine.
This is another transparent attempt to sow division b/t minority communities and distract from your own criminal behavior by smearing a Muslim woman.
No one should fall for it this time. (7)
Donald J. Trump:
Democrat Rep. Tlaib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust. She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said, and says? (8)
Bernie Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, also directed his comments at Trump, tweeting, "Mr. President: Stop dividing the American people up by their religion, their race or their country of origin -- and stop your ugly attacks against Muslim women in Congress. You are taking Rep. @RashidaTlaib's comments out of context and should apologize."
Trump rhetoric
Many analysts have pointed to the US president's heated rhetoric as the catalyst for far-right attacks and threats in the country - an accusation the White House has rejected.
Last month, police arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of leaving racist, homophobic and Islamophobic messages filled with death threats on the voicemails of Tlaib, Democrat Eric Swalwell and Democrat Cory Booker.
The man, who reportedly defended President Donald Trump in the messages and warned the politicians to stop criticising the president, has been charged with making threatening communications.
Last year, the Anti-Defamation League said all perpetrators who carried out at least 50 "extremism-related murders" were linked to the far right.
That total marked the largest number of people killed by the far right since 1995, the watchdog said.
Trump last month tweeted out a video of Omar featuring footage of the World Trade Center burning juxtaposed with her comments, taken out of context to portray her attitude to the 9/11 attacks as glib. Omar said she experienced an increased number of death threats after the video was shared. At least one other man was arrested.
The president's language was also criticised following an anti-Semitic massacre in Pittsburgh last year - and during a week-long mail bombing spree that saw another Florida man target high-profile liberal political figures, Trump critics and the news outlet CNN.” (9)
Footnotes
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp
5) https://twitter.com/RepRashida/status/1127759449526013953
6) https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1128022871442382852
7) https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1127962172166946817
8) https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1127938873630367744