Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaks during a rally on the National Mall during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington, October 20, 2023.
“These 9 Democrats Voted Against Resolution Backing Israel, Condemning Hamas”—October 25 headline in The Hill
“House Republicans Are Standing With Israel, While Extreme Democrats Side with Israel’s Aggressors”—October 25 House GOP Caucus press release
“Resolution, Censuring Representative Rashida Tlaib for antisemitic activity, sympathizing with terrorist organizations, and leading an insurrection at the United States Capitol Complex”—House resolution submitted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on October 25
“Breaking News”—headline on an October 25 “report” published by Canary Mission, a self-described watchdog group that opposes “anti-Semitism on college campuses” and targets “anti-Israel activists.” The “report” alleges that Tlaib is a supporter of Hamas terrorism because some of her supporters are Palestinians who have raised money for groups alleged to have ties to Hamas, and because she has been an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights.
“Rashida Tlaib’s Alleged Links to the Hamas Terror Organization—Report”—October 26 Jerusalem Post headline
The handwriting is on the wall.
Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) will be censured in the coming days by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, for the same reason that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy stripped her colleague Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her House Foreign Affairs Committee membership back in January: because she is a Muslim woman of color speaking out on behalf of Palestinians.
The only question is whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) censure motion will be supported by many Democrats. Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz has already declared that he will support Greene’s motion. Former DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz—also from Florida—who last year called Tlaib’s criticisms of Israel “nothing short of antisemitic,” has also denounced her on CNN. Other Democrats may be joining the chorus.
Any Democrat, and any Jewish American who is not a Trumpist—and, alas, there are Trumpists and even fascists among Jewish Americans, too—who supports this censure, or who even supports the less legalistic effort to denounce and silence Tlaib, is playing the fool. They will undermine the very values they claim to support. They will undermine the very possibility of there ever being any political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rashida Tlaib has long been a harsh critic of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and its denial of human rights to Palestinians. She has opposed unconditional assistance to Israel. She has supported recognition of a “Nakba Day.” And she continues to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a form of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli domination and disenfranchisement of the millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.
Tlaib, elected twice by the voters of Michigan’s 13th Congressional District and then again by voters in the redistricted 12th District, is emphatic about her support of Palestinians—a position that at least many of her constituents, large numbers of whom are Arab Americans, also support.
Tlaib is also the only Palestinian American in the U.S. House of Representatives.
And yet all too many Americans, including many Jewish Americans, seem to imagine that Rashida Tlaib should think and act like Chuck Schumer or Adam Schiff.
In the days since Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack on Israel, immediately followed by the massive Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza that continues to this day, Tlaib has been one of the strongest advocates of a cease-fire and also one of the strongest congressional critics of the IDF policy of bombing large sections of Gaza, which has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. Her refusal to apologize for believing allegations that IDF bombing was responsible for the October 17 destruction of a Gaza hospital has angered many—though the evidence here remains inconclusive (see here and here), and as I type these words the IDF is apparently publicly warning another Gaza hospital to evacuate or risk being bombed. Her refusal to support the House resolution “backing Israel and denouncing Hamas” has clearly offended many sincere supporters of Israel, and has also furnished an opportunity for cynical MAGA Republicans to attack her and the left more generally.
Based on what many are saying, you might think Tlaib is some kind of fanatical Israel-hater or celebrant of Hamas terror. And yet here is the official statement she issued to explain her opposition to a resolution that does not mourn Palestinian lives:
I have and continue to denounce the killing of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity. Targeting civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it. Do not confuse my vote against this one-sided resolution with a lack of empathy for all those who are grieving. I voted against this resolution because it is a deeply incomplete and biased account of what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and what has been happening for decades. This resolution rightly mourns the thousands of Israeli civilians killed and wounded in the horrific attacks but explicitly does not mourn the thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 2,000 children, killed and wounded in the collective punishment of Palestine. How does treating Palestinian civilians as less than fully human, as legitimate targets for retribution, bring us closer to a just and lasting peace?
U.S. military support for Israel with absolutely no conditions on upholding human rights has not brought peace and justice to the region. This resolution is not a serious examination of the root causes of the violence we are witnessing and doubles down on decades of failed policy. Achieving a just and lasting peace where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and freedoms, and where no person lives in fear for their safety, requires ending the blockade, occupation, and dehumanizing system of apartheid. I urge my colleagues to support our Ceasefire Now Resolution to call for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire, to send humanitarian aid and assistance to Gaza, and to save as many lives as possible.
Is it understandable why many—though not all—Jewish American politicians and citizens might sincerely object to some of these words? Sure.
Is it understandable that a wide range of people who care about Middle East politics might not embrace the call for a cease-fire? Sure.
Is Rashida Tlaib required by some moral imperative or standard of decency to hold her tongue, much less to think and say what Jared Moskowitz or Kevin McCarthy or Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Marjorie Taylor Greene think and say?
No.
To even imply as much is to dishonor a fundamental ethical principle of democratic politics: the idea that in a free society diverse citizens will experience the world differently and articulate their interests differently.
A plurality of opinions and the freedom to share and debate them is the hallmark of a liberal democracy; indeed, the hallmark of any decent society. And the effort to flatten real differences of experience and perspective into a coerced “consensus” threatens freedom itself.
Hannah Arendt noted this back in 1948, in a prescient essay entitled “To Save The Jewish Homeland”:
Unanimity of opinion is a very ominous phenomenon, and one characteristic of our modern mass age. It destroys social and personal life, which is based on the fact that we are different by nature and by conviction. To hold different opinions and to be aware that other people think differently on the same issue shields us from that Godlike certainty which stops all discussion and reduces social relationships to those of an ant heap. A unanimous public opinion tends to eliminate bodily those who differ, for mass unanimity is not the result of agreement, but an expression of fanaticism and hysteria.
Rashida Tlaib is now being attacked for being Rashida Tlaib—someone whose background and family ties are unlike the background and family ties of those who are now not simply disagreeing with her but demonizing her.
Back in early 2019, Ilhan Omar was the target of similar attacks. I wrote articles deploring them, and what I wrote then unfortunately applies just as much today:
It is true that Omar lacks the sensitivity to Jewish people that comes from a certain experience that she does not have. There are many different ways that people from different parts of the world experience the world. (Is it really necessary for this to even be said in the year 2019?) Omar is a Somali-American who was born in Mogadishu and grew up in Baydhabo, not New York or Los Angeles. And she is a Muslim whose personal experiences as a refugee make her especially sensitive to the plight of marginal Third World peoples, including Palestinians. Her words about the politics of U.S. foreign policy, and about Israeli-Palestinian relations, are sometimes infelicitous. But hers is a perspective shared by many young people. And it is motivated by a passion for equality, and only by lifting her words out of context can they be seen as hateful.
Why are Muslim-Americans like her and Rashida Tlaib under an automatic cloud of suspicion—as they are for many—because they care about Palestinian rights, while it goes without question that Americans can simply love Israel if they choose? Why are many Americans—yes, unfortunately, including many Jews, though surely not all and perhaps not even most—more comfortable treating Bibi Netanyahu as a “partner” than treating American citizens and public officials like Omar and Tlaib as partners?
I urge every serious person who disagrees with what Tlaib has recently said and done to actually reread her words. They are the words of a decent person who cares about human rights and deplores violence and who mourns the Hamas killings of Israelis on October 7 and Israeli killings of Palestinians in the weeks that have followed.
She is not a Zionist. Must everyone be a Zionist? Must Palestinians be Zionists too?
Rashida Tlaib articulates an important point of view. Indeed, there is probably no Palestinian or Palestinian American anywhere in the world who is more reasonable, more dialogic, more democratic, than Rashida Tlaib. On a broad range of issues, she has contributed admirably to public discussion since arriving in Congress. She has been a vocal leader of efforts to defend democracy against Trumpism. She stands for election every two years and respects the results of the election. She has as much democratic legitimacy as any other member of Congress. And she has every right, as a member of Congress, and as a citizen, to represent her constituents, by standing for what she believes in, openly and honestly.
It is brave of her, in the current political climate, to do this. And she deserves credit, not scorn, for truly engaging real debate about the awful crisis unfolding now in Israel and Gaza.
If Democrats in Washington and elsewhere who disagree with Tlaib can’t listen to her, respect her opinions, and engage her, then what hope is there for any dialogue with any Palestinians? And what hope is there for robust debate, about the world and the U.S. role in the world, that is needed more than ever in the Democratic Party, and in the U.S. at large?
To join with Marjorie Taylor Greene in denouncing Rashida Tlaib for promoting “terrorism” or “insurrection” would be a contemptible act of cynicism.
And to censure Rashida Tlaib would be to censure democracy itself.
